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PETER AND JANE 








PETER AND JANE 


BY 

S. MACNAUGHTAN 

Author of “The Fortune of Christina Macnab,” “The Lame 
Dog’s Diary,” and “Three Miss Graemes,” etc., etc. 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 


1911 


Copyright, 1911 
By Dodd, Mead & Co. 
Published, October, 1911 


CHAPTER I 


Mrs. Ogievie, red-haired according to the exact 
shade then in fashion, and dressed by Paquin, sat 
in her drawing-room reading the Court Journal. 
She thought on the lines of Aristotle, despised 
most women except Charlotte Corday, Judith, Joan 
of Arc and a few others, and she dyed her hair 
and read the Court Journal. People who did not 
know her sometimes alluded to her as an over- 
dressed woman with a wig. Those who had met 
her, even but once, admitted the power of her per- 
sonality. Perhaps if anyone had known her very 
well he or she would have been bewildered by the 
many-sided complexities of her character, and would 
have failed to discover any sort of unity behind its 
bewildering differences. But then as a matter of 
fact no one did know her well. 

Those who cared to remember such an old story 
used to tell how as a girl of eighteen she had been 
deeply in love with a cousin of hers, Greville Monsen 
by name, and how, almost on the eve of her marriage, 
she had thrown him over and had married Colonel 
Ogilvie, the explorer; a man twenty years older than 
herself with an enormous fortune, who was something 
of a hero just then in London Society. 

Colonel Ogilvie married late in life, and his broth- 
er’s wife had long ago decided that it would have 
1 


2 


PETER AND JANE 


been better if he had never married at all. Mrs. 
Lionel Ogilvie was an ambitious woman with a fine 
family of sons and daughters to whom Colonel Ogil- 
vie’s large estates and immense fortune would have 
been wholly appropriate. She had always been civil 
to her brother-in-law, although the estates and the 
money were entailed upon his brother, and she 
weighed the disinterested affection which she showed 
him in the balance against her feeling of satisfac- 
tion in that fact that he was a daring and indefati- 
gable traveller; one moreover who was seldom quite 
happy unless he was in danger, and who never really 
enjoyed a journey if any other white man had trod- 
den the ground before he himself visited it. 

Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie was indignant at the news of 
Colonel Ogilvie’s marriage. Being a very wise 
woman she would probably in time have controlled 
her temper, and by a little judicious management 
might have secured a considerable fortune for her- 
self and her children. But alas! there was a neces- 
sity within her of “ exploding 99 to someone when, 
as at this instance her heart was hot and her head 
was not quite cool. And so, venting her spleen with 
some sense of justice upon the cause of it, Mrs. 
Lionel Ogilvie said certain very unwise and unkind 
things about her brother-in-law’s fiancee and her 
cousin Greville Monsen. Of course the heated and 
uncontrolled words of the disappointed woman were 
repeated, and there was a terrible and stormy in- 
terview between the two brothers, who parted that 


PETER AND JANE 


3 


same day and never spoke to each other again. 
Mrs. Francis Ogilvie, the Colonel’s wife, bore the 
character then which she continued to bear all her 
life of being a cold and dispassionate woman. And 
this was the most remarkable because on the dis- 
taff side she was of Spanish descent, and might rea- 
sonably have been supposed to have inherited the 
instincts of that passionate and hot-tempered na- 
tion. She never quarrelled, and she never met and 
had the matter out with Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie, as the 
brothers had done, but her eyes narrowed for a mo- 
ment with a trick that was characteristic of her when 
the tale was repeated to her. And when in the 
quieter moments that followed Colonel Ogilvie’s first 
hours of real anger against his brother’s wife, he 
spoke with a certain honest blundering manliness to 
his bride, wondering with a tone of question in his 
voice, if Lionel and that odious wife of his could 
possible expect to be forgiven, Mrs. Ogilvie raised 
her eyebrows and said simply, “ I do not know what 
forgiveness means.” And that ended the matter. 

When Lionel died the feud might have ended had 
it not been for the lamentable fact that his eldest 
son, who had grown up into a faithful likeness of his 
worldly and commonplace mother, took it into his 
head at the time of his father’s death to write a 
letter to his uncle, which showed as much greed 
as ill-breeding. The foolish young man’s letter 
might have been put into the fire and forgotten, for 
Colonel Ogilvie had loved his brother long ago, and 


4s 


PETER AND JANE 


his death was making his heart tender. But young 
Lionel made a mistake when he referred to the fact 
that Colonel and Mrs. Ogilvie were childless, and 
alluded to his own prospects. This, to use a hack- 
neyed expression, “ finished ” young Lionel with his 
uncle forever. And Mrs. Ogilvie drew her lips to- 
gether, and just for one moment locked her hands 
with an impulsive movement that had a whole life’s 
tragedy and disappointment in it. It was all the 
world to her and her husband that they should have 
children, but a little girl who had died when she was 
born had been the only child of the marriage. 

As the years came and went Colonel Ogilvie lost 
interest in his property, and handed over the care 
of the greater part of it to agents and stewards, 
and came very near to hating the lands which some 
day would go to his nephew. A queer restlessness 
was upon him, and his wife watched him and said 
nothing. Until one day, seeing him reading a cer- 
tain paragraph in a newspaper, she said to him smil- 
ing slightly as they stood together on the broad stone 
terrace at Bowshott: 

“ Why don’t you go with them on this exploring 
expedition ? ” 

Colonel Ogilvie protested; he was a married man, 
he said, and his travelling days were over. It is 
probable, however, that never was a suggestion more 
welcome to him. The past years, in spite of his 
deep love for his wife, had been full of fret and 
shadowed by disappointment, and he longed, with a 


PETER AND JANE 


5 


traveller’s intensity of longing for the wild un- 
troubled places of the world, the primitive life, and 
if possible some dangers on the road. The explor- 
ing party sent out by the British government to 
discover a lost missionary and to punish a warlike 
tribe was exactly the thing to suit his adventurous 
disposition. In spirit he was already in the danger- 
ous places of Central Africa, far from human habi- 
tation, and with his right hand very often the only 
thing between him and a barbarous death. Even 
while he protested with conscientious emphasis against 
his wife’s proposal, he already saw the dim forests 
of Africa, the line of bearers on the difficult march, 
the tents struck at nightfall, and all the parapher- 
nalia of an interested campaign. . . . 

He was away for eighteen months, beyond the 
reach of letters and telegrams for the greater part 
of the time; and during his absence Mrs. Ogilvie, 
whose health had been feeble for some time, went 
to her native land of Spain for warmth and sun- 
shine, travelling by sea to Lisbon for the sake of 
the voyage. From her Spanish mother she had in- 
herited a property at Granada, and it was from 
there that she was able to write and tell her husband 
that she was the mother of a son. Colonel Ogilvie 
was in an inaccessible region when that happened, 
and it was not until he was on his return journey 
home that he heard the good news. Two years later 
another child, Peter, was bom, and ardently as her 
first born had been desired, Mrs. Ogilvie showered 


6 


PETER AND JANE 


by far the greater part of her affection upon the 
younger child. Everything had to give way to 
Peter, and she resented that even such baby priv- 
ileges as a child of tender years can receive were 
bestowed upon the elder son and heir. Her health 
gave cause for anxiety for some time after Peter 
was born, and her mental state and the condition 
of her nerves accounted perhaps for the almost pas- 
sionate partiality which she showed for her younger 
child. There were great doctors down at Bowshott 
in those days who prescribed for Mrs. Ogilvie, and 
told the Colonel hopefully that this distorted affec- 
tion was not unusual in a nervous patient, and that 
with returning health his wife would be perfectly 
normal in her maternal love. 

The Colonel, however, was always a little jealous 
for the fair-haired boy who had come to his mother 
while he was far away; and by his will, which he 
made at this time, he secured an almost extravagant 
provision for Edward, the elder son. Colonel Ogilvie 
could almost forgive his nephews now for their ob- 
trusive existence in the world, and he settled down 
to enjoy his property with the happy knowledge 
that he had two fine sturdy boys to whom to leave 
it. He was still in the prime of life, and not all 
the dangers and privations which he had undergone 
seemed to have undermined his splendid constitution. 
But a drive home in an open dog-cart, after speak- 
ing in an overheated hall at a political meeting, 


PETER AND JANE 


7 


brought on a chill and pneumonia of which very sud- 
denly he died. His loss was sincerely and deeply 
regretted in a neighbourhood where he was both ad- 
mired and loved for his many good qualities; and a 
monument in Caversham parish church tells of his 
excellence as a landlord and his intrepid courage as 
an explorer. 

Mrs. Ogilvie’s health still being precarious she 
went abroad for the winter after her husband’s death, 
to look into some matters concerning her own prop- 
erty, and to try and court health in the sunny vine- 
growing country. And there in a little remote Span- 
ish village by the sea which she loved to visit, little 
Edward Ogilvie, the elder of the two children, died; 
and not until six years later did Mrs. Ogilvie return 
to England. To all outward seeming she was as 
emotionless and reserved as she had ever been, and 
she spoke no word of her double sorrow and her 
irreparable loss. Her love for her remaining child 
never showed itself in caresses, and was not even dis- 
cernible in her speech, but in spite of her reserve 
there was an undefined feeling in most people’s minds 
that Mrs. Ogilvie idolised her son. Of the two who 
were dead no one ever heard her speak. Whatever 
she thought of them seemed to be buried in her heart 
as deeply as though that heart had been their graves. 
And there remained only cheery popular Ogilvie, with 
his mind as open as the day, and not a secret upon 
his soul and with as much reserve as a schoolboy, 


8 


PETER AND JANE 


to inherit the fortune which a prince might have 
envied, and a property which was a show place in a 
county rich in beautiful houses. 

The gardens of Bowshott were the admiration of 
the countryside, and Mrs. Ogilvie rarely entered 
them. The picture gallery was visited by foreign- 
ers from every part of the world; Mrs. Ogilvie fre- 
quently showed the works of the great masters her- 
self, strolling along the polished floor of the gallery 
in dresses which Marie Antoinette might have worn, 
and telling the story of this picture and that with 
the inimitable grace of manner which was vaguely 
resented by her country neighbours, and delighted 
the distinguished foreigners who came to see the 
pictures. She herself hardly ever glanced at the 
Old Masters for her own pleasure; and although 
full of technical knowledge on the subject she had no 
love of art. It used to weary her when she had to 
listen to enthusiasm, generally only half sincere, about 
her Botticellis, Velasquezes or Raphaels. Music 
never stirred her, and she regarded the society of 
the country neighbourhood where she lived with a 
sense of uncomprehension, which she sometimes found 
difficult of concealment. “ Why were such people 
born ? ” she used to say to herself at the sight of 
some rural gathering. On the rare occasions when 
she went to a party she was always the first to leave 
— boredom seemed to overtake her before she had 
been anywhere very long. Entertainments, so 
called, were horribly wearisome to her, and she never 


PETER AND JANE 


9 


for an instant believed them when people professed 
to have enjoyed a pleasant party. Parties were all 
stupid, she thought; just as most people were stupid, 
and most food was badly cooked. Therefore, why 
meet in somebody else’s most probable hideous room, 
and eat impossible dishes and talk to impossible peo- 
ple? Her own chef had been famous, even in Paris, 
and every evening it was the custom of the house to 
prepare an extravagant menu , at which, when she 
was alone she hardly glanced. 

Mrs. Ogilvie discussed all things in Heaven or 
earth with a baffling lightness ; turned philosophy 
into a clever jest, and made a sort of slang of classi- 
cal terminology. Amongst a clever set in London 
she reigned supreme when she chose; but a false 
note or pose offended her immediately, and the poseur, 
or the insincere person, would generally receive one 
of her exquisite snubs which cut like acid into ten- 
der skins. The pretentiousness of the so-called cul- 
tured set was a vulgarism in the eyes of this woman 
who could be rude with the airs of a princess, and 
could give a snub as some people offer a compliment. 
Inferior people sometimes wondered how she had a 
friend left. To be popular, they argued, one had 
to be civil, whereas Mrs. Ogilvie was often daringly 
disagreeable. There was, indeed, something almost 
fine in her splendid disdain of the persistent civility 
of the so-called popular person. She could wound; 
but she did it with the grace of a duellist of old 
days, who would wipe his rapier with a handkerchief 


10 


PETER AND JANE 


of cambric and lace when he had killed his opponent, 
and would probably expect a man to die as he him- 
self would die, with a jest on his lips and a light 
laugh at the flowing blood. Mrs. Ogilvie slew ex- 
quisitely, and she never hated her opponent. 

She smiled at enthusiasm and thought it bizarre 
and rather delightful; but towards vulgarity, espe- 
cially in its pompous form, she presented her 
poignard point, sharply tipped and deadly. “ Why 
should people take themselves seriously? 99 she would 
say with a shrug of her shoulders. “ Surely we 
are a common enough species ! 99 And then the 
green-grey eyes would narrow themselves in their 
short-sighted way, and Mrs. Ogilvie’s voice, charm- 
ingly refined and well-bred with a few words would 
lightly prick the falsely sentimental and self-inflated 
wind-bag of oratory that had presented its unpro- 
tected surface to her shaft. 

Towards religion her attitude was the well-bred 
one. She took off her hat to it, as a gentleman re- 
moves his hat in church, whatever his creed may be. 
Her own beliefs were as daring and as nearly as pos- 
sible uninfluenced by outward opinion or by the ac- 
cepted system as it is possible for a creed to be. 
She never tried to force her theories upon anyone 
else; possibly she did not believe in them herself 
sufficiently to wish to do so ; but like her queer gowns 
and her dyed red hair her creed suited Mrs. Ogilvie. 
There was a congruous incongruity about her which 
set many people puzzling to find out her real char- 


PETER AND JANE 


11 


acter. Pompous persons and snobs detested her. 
Stupid or vapid people saw nothing in her — or 
saw merely that she dyed her hair and was dressed 
by Paquin. Narrow-minded people disapproved of 
her, and clever people considered her one of the most 
striking, if not the most agreeable of the personali- 
ties of the day. Women hardly ever understood 
her; but they respected anyone who dressed as well 
as she did, and they had an undeclared admiration 
for a woman who could hold so lightly the possessions 
which they believed to be all-important, and which 
Mrs. Ogilvie seemed to find so trivial. 

But Mrs. Ogilvie was a power, and that without 
any effort of her own; and she attracted even where 
she provoked. No one had more enemies than she, 
but she could obtain worship for herself by merely 
holding up her little finger, and it sometimes suited 
her purpose to make the required signal to the most 
unlikely persons. The indifferent attitude was im- 
possible towards Mrs. Ogilvie. Her country neigh- 
bours respected her, as they respected her picture 
gallery and her magnificent jewels, and her world 
renowned collection of art treasures, and they re- 
garded her in some sort, as a splendid appendage 
to a country house of which the whole neighbour- 
hood was proud. 

The house and its gardens were open once a week 
to visitors, and the country neighbours brought their 
guests and strangers to see it — their pleasure in 
showing off Mrs. Ogilvie’s possessions being some- 


12 


PETER AND JANE 


what tempered by timidity; while those who came 
to pay a call on the chance of finding her at home 
would sometimes say with an air of courage and in- 
dependence to a friend, “ Mrs. Ogilvie is considered 
rather alarming, you know, but it really is only her 
manner.” She played her part as country neigh- 
bour conscientiously. Once a year she gave a sump- 
tuous garden party — all other garden parties in the 
neighbourhood being dated by it. And when Peter 
was a little boy there were children asked to the house 
to play games with him, and later there were dances 
and balls. 

Peter accepted his mother, his property, and his 
position, on what he himself would probably have 
called their most cheery side. He valued Bowshott 
because there was excellent hunting to be got there ; 
just as he loved his place in Scotland because of the 
deer-stalking, and the fishing and the shooting, but 
that they were magnificent or enviable never entered 
his head. Fate had dealt very kindly with him, and 
its kindliness had provoked a charming geniality in 
the character of the young man whom it had treated 
with such lavish good fortune. Taking it all round 
Peter considered this world an excellent one, and 
most of the people in it very good sorts indeed. 
He accepted his mother as he accepted everything 
else, with a simple-heartedness which never looked 
below the surface nor concerned itself with motives ; 
and if anyone had suggested to him that she was 
inexplicable he would have considered such a judg- 


PETER AND JANE 


18 


ment very foolish, and quite unintelligible. He en- 
joyed a visit to her more than almost anything else 
in the world. She had always been devoted to him 
ever since he was a boy, and for the life of him he 
could not see that she was difficult to understand. 

It was the fashion to say that Mrs. Ogilvie had 
altered greatly since the death of Colonel Ogilvie 
and the little boy. People who remembered all 
the circumstances of that sad time thought always 
that in her own way Mrs. Ogilvie was the victim 
of remorse for not having loved her dead child bet- 
ter. But after all there was nothing that a child 
of three or four years old could have felt seriously 
in his mother’s conduct, and his father’s affection 
must have consoled him for any coldness on her part. 
After the Colonel’s death there were those who said 
it would have been better if Mrs. Ogilvie had mar- 
ried again or even if she had had a daughter — 
someone who would have been always at home, and 
who, to use the usual phrase — might have taken 
Mrs. Ogilvie out of herself. Peter was too much 
away from home to be a real companion to his 
mother, and there were never guests at Bowshott un- 
less he was there. It would surely have been in 
reason if the widow had taken a fancy to some nice 
girl and had had her live in the house. But Mrs. 
Ogilvie did not take fancies to nice girls. She loved 
Jane Erskine, but disguised the feeling under a sort 
of whimsical indifference. And the friendship 
seemed incongruous enough if one came to think of 


14 * 


PETER AND JANE 


it. Jane, with her wholesome love of out-door life, 
her fresh beauty, her heedlessness of learning and 
ignorance of books — what had Jane in common 
with Mrs. Ogilvie in her Parisian gowns and with 
her dyed hair, sitting in the vast drawing-room at 
Bowshott reading the Court Journal and thinking on 
the lines of the speculative philosophers? 

And even to Jane Erskine her manner was cold. 
Her chilling philosophy would soon have quenched 
a less happy and impulsive nature. No one but Jane 
would have bothered her head about Mrs. Ogilvie, 
the kindly neighbours said — envying, nevertheless, 
the girl’s intimacy at the great house. But as a 
matter of fact, Jane expended a wealth of honest 
affection on Mrs. Ogilvie, and not only thought her 
the cleverest woman she had ever met, and had even 
been heard to affirm that her hair was not dyed. 
She called her “ such a really good sort,” and the 
words were as inappropriate as the words of Peter 
Ogilvie and Jane Erskine usually were. 


CHAPTER II 

Jane Erskine was at this present time at that in- 
teresting period when her friends and relatives, hav- 
ing just discovered the unexpected fact that she 
was grown up, subjected her to mildly severe criti- 
cism, while believing that to have reached woman- 
hood at all showed a considerable amount of talent 
and good taste on her part. They were, they said, 
under no misapprehension about Jane; in moments 
of extreme candour touched with responsibility they 
had even been known to say that in one or two re- 
spects she was not absolutely perfect. Miss Abing- 
don, for instance, who always conscientiously en- 
couraged these moods, and censured the General for 
spoiling Jane, would frequently compare her niece 
with herself, as she remembered that dim figure of 
girlhood, and never failed to find cause for unfavour- 
able comparison between the two. From the por- 
traits which she drew of herself it was generally be- 
lieved that Miss Abingdon must have been bom 
rather a straight-laced spinster of thirty, and have 
increased in years until her hair was touched with 
grey ; when she would seem to have become the 
mellow^ severe, dignified, loving and critical lady who 
at this moment was looking out of her drawing- 
room window and trying to show her impartiality for 
15 


16 


PETER AND JANE 


her orphan niece by subjecting her to lawful and 
unbiassed criticism. 

“ The day of the incomprehensible woman is past 
and gone,” said Miss Abingdon, and she looked out 
of the window and sighed a little. 

Jane Erskine was painting a rabbit hutch on the 
lawn. Miss Erskine’s attitude showed the keen work- 
man, but disguised the woman of grace. Miss 
Erskine, in fact, was lying full length on the green- 
sward of her aunt’s lawn absorbed in the engrossing 
occupation of putting the right dabs of green paint 
upon a portion of the inside of the rabbit hutch 
which was awkward to get at. 

“ They are all alike,” sighed Miss Abingdon. 
She alluded to the girlhood of the present day as it 
presented itself to her regretful and disapproving eye. 
“ They wear shoes two sizes too large for them, and 
they don’t require to be taken care of, and they 
buy their own horses and they are never ill. They 
call young men by their Christian names ! I don’t 
think they even have headaches.” Miss Abingdon 
sighed again over this lost art of womanhood. 
“There is my niece, Jane Erskine; she might be a 
graceful and elegant young woman, whereas, she is 
sunburned, and — it is a dreadful word of course — 
but I can only call her leggy; perhaps it is the fault 
of those narrow skirts. Women have never been 
so much respected since crinolines went out of fash- 
ion. I believe the independence of the modern girl 


PETER AND JANE 


17 


is no longer assumed; it is not even a regrettable 
passing fashion ; the time has come when I am 
afraid they really are independent. Jane would 
think me insane if I were to go out and sit with her 
in the garden when Peter comes to call; and I don’t 
believe she has ever done a piece of fancy work in 
her life!” said Miss Abingdon. 

She looked round her pretty drawing-room, in 
which with a spinster’s instinct for preserving old 
family treasures, she had gathered and garnered an- 
tique pieces of furniture, ill-drawn family portraits, 
and chairs covered with the worsted work and bead 
work of fifty or sixty years ago. She looked re- 
gretfully at the piano and the old neatly bound folios 
of music with »“ M. A.” upon the covers, and she 
wondered how it was that no one cared to hear her 
“ pieces ” now. She went over to the music stand 
and fingered them in a contemplative way. How 
industriously she used to practise “ Woodland War- 
blings,” <e My Pretty Bird,” “ La Sympathie, Valse 
sentimentale pour le piano,” and “ Quant’ e piu 
bella ” — fingered and arranged with variations. 

On Sunday afternoons when her guests “ were 
having a look at the mokes ” Miss Abingdon still 
played through her book of Sacred Pieces; and it 
was on Sunday afternoons, too, that she always stirred 
the jars of potpourri upon the cabinets, so that 
their pungent faint odour might exhale through the 
room. The old pieces of music and the scent of the 


18 


PETER AND JANE 


dried rose leaves together always brought back to 
Miss Abingdon’s mind fragrant memories of long 
ago. 

“We used to take a roll of music with us when 
we were asked out to dinner,” she reflected ; “ and it 
was all-important to us who should turn over our 
leaves for us, and we generally blushed and hesi- 
tated before we sat down to the piano at all. Last 
night Jane almost fought with Peter for the larger 
portion of the key-board of the piano; and they 
played music without any tune in it, to my way of 
thinking, and there is no seriousness at all about any 
of them. 

“ I wonder if they — ” Miss Abingdon again re- 
ferred to that distressing body of young women of 
the present day — “ I wonder if they have ever kissed 
a lover’s letter, or have slept with his picture under- 
neath their pillows at night? Or have they ever lain 
sleepless for an hour because of a loved one’s absence, 
or because of a cold word from him? Do they write 
verses, or exchange valentines, or even give each 
other flowers ? ” 

Miss Abingdon recalled in her own mind the days 
when she and her sister used to walk together in the 
Park, with Mamma leaning upon Papa’s arm and 
pacing sedately behind; and how when they used to 
sit down on one of the lawns it had always been in 
a group of four. Ah! those were the days when 
one went home and wept because the dear one, the 
handsome hero who filled half a girl’s thoughts, and 


PETER AND JANE 


19 


was the object of more than half her worship, had 
not seen one across the crowd; or he had seen, per- 
haps, but girlish modest eyes were forbidden to give 
the signal of approach. It was more maidenly to 
be oblivious of a young man’s presence then. 
“ Now,” said Miss Abingdon, “ when they see a 
young man whom they know — a pal, I believe they 
call him — girls will wave their parasols or even shout. 
I have known them rise from their own chairs and 
go and speak to a man. The whole thing is ex- 
traordinary to me.” 

It was a relief to Miss Abingdon’s sombre reflec- 
tions when her friend, the vicar’s wife, came in for 
a morning call. She thought that Mrs. Wrottes- 
ley’s brown merino dress and bonnet and con- 
straining mantle, which rendered all movements of 
the arms impossible, looked very decorous and wom- 
anly compared with the soles of a pair of brown 
leather shoes, and the fore-shortened figure of five 
feet eight of slender young womanhood stretched 
in strenuous devotion to her strange occupation on 
the lawn. 

When Mrs. Wrottesley seated herself opposite the 
window, Miss Abingdon resisted an impulse to pull 
down the blind. 

“ Yesterday,” said Miss Abingdon glancing at her 
niece, “ she was trying to copy a feat which she had 
seen at the hippodrome, and was riding one pony 
and driving another tandem in front of her over some 
hurdles in the field.” 


PETER AND JANE 


20 

Mrs. Wrottesley smiled with the rather provoking 
indulgence with which our friends regarded the 
foibles of our relations. 

44 She is young/’ said Mrs. Wrottesley, 44 and she 
is very beautiful.” 

44 No,” said Miss Abingdon with inward pride 
at her own unwavering impartiality ; 44 1 honestly 
believe that if we were to consider Jane without 
prejudice we should find that she is simply healthy.” 

44 It is a great charm,” said Mrs. Wrottesley. 

44 No, no,” corrected Miss Abingdon quickly, 44 the 
charm of womanhood consists in its mysteriousness. 
Now the girl of to-day is simply a good fellow; 
she is a boy in petticoats. She doesn’t require to 
be understood, and she doesn’t drive men crazy; she 
shoves her own bicycle up hills, and fights for the 
larger half of the key-board of the piano.” She 
sighed again. 

44 She is a moral influence,” said Mrs. Wrottes- 
ley. 

Mrs. Wrottesley also alluded to the girl of the 
period; and Miss Abingdon thought to refer to her 
as 44 she ” or a type, instead of 44 they ” had a fla- 
vour of culture about it, but she was slightly em- 
barrassed by it. 

44 Yes, yes,” she said impatiently, her love of con- 
tradicting Mrs. Wrottesley inclined her to undue 
severity, 44 she is as straight as any other good fel- 
low, and she pays up if she has lost at bridge, and 
would as soon think of picking a pocket as of cheat- 


PETER AND JANE 


21 


in g at croquet; but she is not mysterious, she is ab- 
solutely comprehensible.” 

44 Probably,” said Mrs. Wrottesley, 44 Jane’s short- 
comings in this respect are due to the fact that she 
is lamentably unaffected. Still, one must allow that 
affectation in the case of girls who ride straight and 
don’t know what it is to have a headache very often 
takes the form of boyishness. Let us console our- 
selves with the fact that by being perfectly natural 
Jane has escaped masculinity.” 

44 Jane is a lady,” said Miss Abingdon severely 
and with a faint suggestion of administering a snub; 
44 but,” she added, 44 there are certain traits of woman- 
hood such as conventionality demands, and it was not 
called artificial to conform to them when I was a girl.” 

44 1 remember,” said Mrs. Wrottesley, 44 that we 
honestly thought that we were very interesting when 
we ate very little, and I myself used often to aspire 
to an attractive display of timidity, when inwardly 
I had no sensation of fear.” 

As the wife of the vicar of the parish Mrs. Wrot- 
tesley wore brown merino and a mantle, but they hid 
a great soul securely held in check and narrowed 
down by a strict adherence to the small conventions 
and paralysing rules which society has prescribed for 
rectors and their wives in the rural parishes of Eng- 
land. She prayed every morning of her life for 
more faith, and meant by that a narrower creed. 
Mrs. Wrottesley was an inarticulate woman, and had 
gained for herself the character of being reserved. 


22 


PETER AND JANE 


Her own view of things differed in all essentials from 
those which were held by those about her, and were 
even inwardly opposed to those theories which her 
husband with such gentlemanly eloquence, expounded 
every Sunday morning. People thought themselves 
charitable when they merely said that they did not 
understand Mrs. Wrottesley. 

“ The modern girl has a good effect upon so- 
ciety,” she continued ; “ the young men of to-day 
regard women very differently from the way in which 
their fathers and uncles used to do.” 

“ Ah, yes,” allowed Miss Abingdon conceding a 
point, but prepared with unanswerable argument, 
“ but will she ever be loved as the old eternal feminine 
was loved? ” 

“ Many people believe,” said Mrs. Wrottesley, 
“ that you can’t be a man’s goddess and surround 
yourself with a golden halo and be his pal at the same 
time.” 

“ I remember,” said Miss Abingdon reminiscently, 
and feeling that she was still scoring heavily against 
her friend ; “ I remember we used to come down to 
breakfast in light gloves to match our gowns, and we 
drew them on when the meal was over and only re- 
moved them in the morning-room when we had taken 
out our embroidery to work at it.” 

“ And when that bored us,” said Mrs. Wrottesley, 
“ we thought we were in love.” 

“ A Miss Sherard stayed here last summer,” said 
Miss Abingdon ; " a friend of Jane’s, and she smoked 


PETER AND JANE 


23 


cigarettes in her bedroom ; I know that, for I saw the 
ashes in her pin tray.” 

Miss Abingdon rather enjoyed making little excur- 
sions through her guests’ bedrooms of an afternoon 
when she had the house to herself ; and without deign- 
ing to touch or disturb anything she knew pretty 
well, for instance, whose complexion was real and 
whose was false, who wore powder and who did not. 

Mrs. Wrottesley glanced at her own figure in the 
drawing-room mirror; her mantle disguised the fact 
that she had either a waist or a pair of arms, and 
she gave a little dry smile as she reflected that she 
had accepted a dolman cloak as she had accepted all 
the other outward conventions of orthodoxy as un- 
derstood by society in rural England. 

“ My cousin, Peter Ogilvie, comes here every day,” 
said Miss Abingdon. “ He is crossing the lawn now ; 
in former days these two young people would have 
been talked about. (Peter is my cousin, you know, on 
my father’s side of the house; he is not related to 
Jane.) But neither will probably mind in the least 
what is said about them, and for my own part I am 
positively unable to say whether they care for each 
other or not. Had I been Jane I would have sat in 
the arbour this morning with a pretty cool white 
dress on, reading poetry or some light romance, or 
working at my embroidery till my lover came, instead 
of being covered with paint and with the footman’s 
green baize apron on.” The two ladies moved closer 
to the window and watched the young man crossing 


PETER AND JANE 


the lawn. He was well-built and not much above 
Jane’s own height, and perhaps when one has said 
that he was fair with that Saxon fairness which sug- 
gests an almost immaculate cleanliness, and looked 
like a gentleman there is not much more to be stated 
about his external appearance. 

Jane rose from her recumbent position on the turf, 
and shook off some blades of short grass from her 
apron, and waved a brush filled with green paint in 
the air. 

“ Don’t touch it, Peter,” she cried ; “ isn’t it 
lovely ! ” 

“ Good morning, Jane,” said Peter, lifting his cap. 
Whatever else might be said of them it would have 
to be admitted that there was a fundamental sense of 
courtesy and good breeding underlying the regretta- 
bly frank manner of these young people — “ If you 
wave your brush about in that triumphant way you’ll 
splash me with green paint.” 

“ I think spots of green on white flannel trousers 
look rather nice,” said Jane contemplatively as she 
surveyed a spot which she had accidentally flicked on 
to the young man’s flannels. 

“ The hutch looks ripping,” said Peter, “ but I 
should feel safer if you would put down that brush.” 

u I couldn’t resist painting the inside,” said Jane, 
surveying her work ecstatically. “ Do you think the 
rabbits will lick off the paint and be sick, Peter? ” 

“ Probably,” said Peter. 

“ Of course we don’t know,” said Jane gravely, 


PETER AND JANE 


25 


“ that it isn’t their favourite food ; rabbits may flour- 
ish on green paint just as we flourish on roast mut- 
ton.” 

“ It would be horrid to have a green inside,” said 
Peter. 

“ I wonder what they are talking about,” said 
Miss Abingdon, glancing with an apprehensive eye 
from the drawing-room window ; “ perhaps after all 
they are making love to each other, and if they are 
I certainly ought to go out and sit with them.” 

Miss Abingdon had antiquated notions of a chap- 
eron’s duties. 

“ I suppose there would be no objections to the 
match if they do care for each other,” said Mrs. 
Wrottesley in a manner that was often called brusque 
and had served to make her unpopular. “ Jane is 
rich — ” 

“ Jane has money,” corrected Miss Abingdon, who 
saw a well-defined difference between the two state- 
ments. “ She is a ward in Chancery, you know, and 
she will not come of age until she is twenty-five. 
Peter, of course, has a very large fortune. Still, one 
would not like to be responsible for a marriage, even 
if it is suitable, and I should not like the Erskines 
to think I had not looked after Jane properly.” 

That nothing should happen always seemed to 
Miss Abingdon the height of safety and of peace. 
She mistrusted events of any kind, and had probably 
remained single owing to her inability to make up her 
mind to any such momentous decision as matrimony 


26 


PETER AND JANE 


involved. She had never been out of England, and 
now could seldom be got to leave home ; whenever she 
quitted her own house something was sure to happen, 
and Miss Abingdon disapproved of happenings. 

She resented almost as an unseemly disturbance 
the events which were soon to crowd so quickly into 
the lives of those near her, and accepted almost as 
an indignity to herself the quick unsparing march of 
incidents that were to follow upon one another, dis- 
turbing her peaceful life to its foundations, and 
filling it with the echo at least of much that was 
mysterious and difficult. Miss Abingdon believed in 
the essential respectability of monotony and loved 
routine. But alas! for routine and respectability, 
and a peaceful and serene existence ! Even elderly 
ladies who dress in black satin, and pay their bills 
weekly, and whose most stimulating and exciting 
morning is the one spent in scolding the gardener, 
may be touched with sorrows for which they are not 
responsible, and shaken by tragedies such as they 
never dreamed would come near them. 

The young couple on the lawn left the unfinished 
rabbit hutch and paint pots and strolled towards a 
garden seat. All the gates and seats on Miss Abing- 
don’s small property were painted white once a year, 
and their trim spotlessness gave an air of homely 
opulence to the place. The bench which her young 
relatives sought was placed beneath a beneficent cedar 
tree that stretched out long kindly branches, and 
looked as though it were wrought in stitch-work on 


PETER AND JANE 


n 

deep blue satin. Jane wiped her fingers upon the 
green baize apron, and Peter lighted a cigarette. 

“ Have you seen Toffy’s new motor-car yet? ” he 
asked. 

Had anyone demanded of him or Jane what they 
meant by the art of conversation they would prob- 
ably have replied that it had something to do with 
Ollendorf’s method. They themselves spoke in short 
sentences, punctuated by laughter, as topics of in- 
terest occurred to them, and as they felt inclined. 
Whether they were speaking or not, their faces ex- 
pressed contentment and perfect good humour. They 
were generally enjoying themselves, and had no idea 
what a morbid thought meant, nor what it meant to 
44 funk ” anything. Both of them held very whole- 
some views about life, in so far as they could be said 
to hold views at all; and they wrote ungrammatical 
letters, and very seldom opened books. And both 
had an immense respect for learning, combined 
with an intense pity for those people who sat indoors 
all day, and who presumably never had a good 
time. 

44 How’s Toffy going to afford a motor? ” said 
Jane with interest. 44 Is it going to be 4 the cheapest 
thing in the end ’ like all Toffy’s extravagances? ” 

Finance, one of the forbidden topics of 1850, was 
discussed to-day with a frankness which Miss Ab- 
ingdon thought positively indelicate. 

44 He says he’ll save railway fares,” said Peter, 
44 and as they are the only things for which Toffy 


28 


PETER AND JANE 


has paid ready money for years, I suppose there is 
something to be said for the motor!” 

“ Is he going to drive it himself? ” 

“ He says so, and the motor is to be run on the 
strictest lines of economy. I am not sure that he is 
not going to water the petrol to make it go fur- 
ther.” 

“ I don’t quite see Toffy steering anything,” said 
Jane, laughing with great enjoyment at the recollec- 
tion of Toffy’s mad riding ; “ he can never take his 
horse through a gate without scraping his leg against 
it.” 

“ So Toffy generally goes over the gates,” said 
Peter, laughing also ; “ and probably he will try the 
same sort of thing with the motor-car.” 

“ Let’s go out with him some day, Peter ! ” There 
was a sort of ripple of enjoyment in Jane’s voice 
which obtruded itself in moments like these ; and she 
turned eyes full of pleasure and anticipation on the 
young man beside her. 

“Let’s! My life’s insured! Toffy says that he 
has thought of three patents by which motor-cars 
might be improved, and that he will pay for his pur- 
chase twice over by the money which he is going to 
make.” 

“ Toffy is an ass ! ” said Jane affectionately. 

“ I am sure it is time I should go and mount 
guard,” said Miss Abingdon anxiously from her post 
by the window. “ Why should they sit together un- 
der the cedar tree like that unless they are making 


PETER AND JANE 


29 


love ? ” She stepped out on the lawn with a garden 
hat placed over her cap, and a sun umbrella over her 
head. 

“ Aunt Mary,” said Jane, “ Toffy’s got a new 
motor! Isn’t it fearfully exciting? We are going 
for a serpentine run with him, and our next of kin 
are going to divide Peter’s insurance between them 
if we never come back again. Be sure you claim 
all you can get if I depart in pieces.” 

Miss Abingdon laughed. She knew she was weak 
even where she disapproved of her niece. Jane never 
kept anything from her, and she would tell her aunt 
ridiculous items of sporting intelligence which were 
as Greek to that excellent lady, and would talk to 
her as to any other really good friend. Miss Abing- 
don was conscious of the charm of this treatment ; and 
the reason for her exodus onto the lawn may perhaps 
have included a desire for the young people’s com- 
pany as well as the more conscientious motive which 
she ascribed to it. 

“ I can’t think why,” she said severely, “ you 
should call a young man Toffy. It is a name I 
should hardly like to have called a dog when I was a 
girl.” 

Peter raised his fair eyebrows and looked dis- 
tressed. 

“ It is his name,” said Jane helplessly. 

u I don’t see what else you could call a man called 
Christopherson,” said Peter thoughtfully — u you 
couldn’t call him Nigel — that’s Toffy’s front name, 


so 


PETER AND JANE 


and I’m afraid he hasn’t got any other. I believe 
fathers and mothers think you must be going to die 
young when they give you a name like that, and 
that it will look well on a tombstone.” 

44 You shouldn’t joke about death, Peter,” said 
Miss Abingdon. 

She felt almost as though she saw an ally ap- 
proaching when she perceived the reverend Canon 
Wrottesley come up the drive to call for his wife on 
the way to the vicarage. 

44 How do you do, Peter, how do you do,” said the 
Canon cordially, as Peter went across the lawn to 
meet him. 44 Got leave again, have you ? I don’t 
believe you know what hard work is ! ” The vicar 
had pottered about a small parish for thirty years 
and had given his five sons an excellent education on 
his wife’s money. This helped to convince the Canon 
that he had borne the burden and heat of the day, 
and he very naturally regarded idleness as the root 
of all evil. 

44 Mrs. Wrottesley is looking over the Guild work 
in the morning room,” said Miss Abingdon consci- 
entiously. She loved to chat with the vicar and 
thought him more genial and charming when his wife 
was not present. 44 Shall I tell her you are here ? ” 

44 She likes taking a look at the things the girls 
have made,” said the Canon indulgently. 

The vicar of Culversham and minor Canon of 
Sedgewick-in-the-marsh was a genial and delightful 
man. He always spoke kindly of his wife’s work, and 


PETER AND JANE 


31 


he could even pardon fussing on the part of a woman. 
He was a universal favourite, and was no doubt aware 
of the fact, which gave him a very legitimate and 
wholly pardonable sense of pleasure. It is doubtful 
if any man was ever more happily placed than was 
Canon Wrottesley in the considerable village of which 
he was the esteemed vicar. In a larger place he 
might have been overlooked in spite of his many ex- 
cellent qualities; and in a smaller one he would not 
have had so many social advantages nor opportuni- 
ties of usefulness. His rectory was large and well 
furnished, his sons were well-grown and well-edu- 
cated, and he himself had many friends. The part 
of the country where he found himself was known to 
house agents as being “ a good neighbourhood,” and 
it was not too far away from London for the Canon 
to feel himself cut off from the intellectual life of his 
day. The Canon belonged to the London Library 
and liked to converse on books, even when he had only 
read a portion of the volumes which he discussed. 
He often fingered them with truly scholarly affection 
as they lay on his library table, and he discussed 
erudite points of learning with a light touch which 
his hearers, in a parish not renowned for its learn- 
ing, found wholly impressive. Even his vanity was 
of a refined and dignified order of things, which 
seemed to accord pleasantly with his handsome clean- 
shaven aristocratic features. Perhaps his one weak- 
ness was to be the centre of every group which he 
adorned. And he held this position skilfully as an 


32 


PETER AND JANE 


able general might have held it, not only by a well- 
bred display of tact such as he showed upon all oc- 
casions, but by a certain gift he possessed of appear- 
ing in different roles at different times according to 
his mood. Still, when all has been said of him — 
the evil and the good, the blessing and the cursing — 
one is fain to admit that the village of Culversham 
would have lacked one of its most pleasing figures 
had Canon Wrottesley been removed from it. He 
bore an untarnished name, he had always a pleasant, 
if pompous, greeting for everyone, and he preached 
and lived like a gentleman. He was well-dressed and 
amiable, and his only display of temper or touchi- 
ness took the rather curious form of adopting some 
role not in accordance with the circumstances in which 
for the moment he found himself. 

Mrs. Wrottesley appeared from the house, still 
clad in her black mantle, which had evidently not been 
removed while she looked over the Guild work, and 
which bore traces thereof upon it in the way of mor- 
sels of cotton and the fluff from unbleached calico. 

<fi Come and sit beside me, love,” said her husband, 
indicating one of Miss Abingdon’s garden seats in 
close proximity to his own cushioned chair, “ and I 
will take care of you.” 

Miss Abingdon smiled and looked admiringly at 
him. Conscience frequently protested against her 
giving way to the thought, but in her heart Miss 
Abingdon was convinced that Mrs. Wrottesley was 
not quite worthy of her husband. 


PETER AND JANE 


“ I think I must go back to the house and finish 
the Guild work,” said Mrs. Wrottesley ; “ I have been 
very slow over it this morning, but I have got a little 
headache, and I have been counting up everything 
wrong, which is very stupid of me.” 

“ How often have I told you not to work when you 
are tired,” said the Canon, shaking his finger reprov- 
ingly at his wife. 

44 I’ll finish the Guild work,” exclaimed Jane, 44 and 
I’ll make Peter come and help.” 

Miss Erskine, who had been sitting upon one of 
her feet and swinging the other, rose impulsively 
from the garden seat, and covered the lawn in a series 
of hops, until her shoe, which had become hopelessly 
entangled in the laces of her petticoat, released itself 
with a rending sound; she then removed her hand 
from Peter’s shoulder, upon which she had been sup- 
porting herself, and together they went into the 
house. 

44 And this,” thought Miss Abingdon ruefully, 44 is 
love as it is understood in the present day.” 


CHAPTER III 


The following morning Miss Erskine was awakened 
at the unusual hour of five a. m. by having her win- 
dow broken by a large pebble. (“I tried small ones 
first, but it was not a bit of good,” said Peter later 
with compunction.) 

Jane stirred sleepily and flung her heavy brown 
hair upon the pillow. This was probably some non- 
sense upon the part of a young Wrottesley, and 
Jane was not going to be taken in by it. 

Next the point of a fishing rod was tapping 
against the pane — it was, therefore, probably the 
Wrottesley boy whose passion for fishing in the early 
hours of the morning was well known. Jane rubbed 
the sleep from her drowsy eyes and called out that 
she knew quite well who it was, and that Cyprian was 
to go away at once. 

44 Jane,” said Peter’s voice, 44 I wish you would 
wake up and come down. Toffy’s had a horrid 
smash. He says he’s all right and won’t disturb peo- 
ple, but his hand is badly cut and he has had a nasty 
knock on his head.” 

“ Oh, Toffy ! ” said Jane, 44 you’ve been in the wars 
again ! ” She had descended from her room and had 
now unbarred the windows of her own sitting-room, 
and stepped out on to the dewy grass in clothes which 
she had hastily put on, her heavy brown hair tied 
34 


PETER AND JANE 


35 


loosely with a ribbon falling down her back. The 
windows of her boudoir were protected by green 
wooden jalousies, and were considered a safeguard 
against thieves. 

“ This is awfully kind of you, Jane,” said Toffy. 
“ I don’t think there is really much the matter with 
me.” 

He came inside the girl’s sitting-room and Peter 
made him lie down on the sofa. There was a horrid 
bruise on one side of his head, and his hand was 
bound up with a pocket handkerchief drenched with 
blood. 

“Don’t look at it,” said Jane; “just stretch out 
your hand like that, and I’ll bathe it.” She had 
the simple remedies which Miss Abingdon kept in 
the house — boracic and lint and plaster. And 
Nigel Christopherson lay on the sofa and looked 
up at the ceiling, because somehow Jane had 
divined that he hated the sight of blood; and he 
discoursed gravely on his misfortunes while she 
dressed the ugly wound and bound and slung his 
hand. 

“ Talk of sick nurses ! ” muttered Peter, and won- 
dered how it was that Jane was able to do everything 
better than other people could. Though, indeed, the 
bandaging showed nothing unusual in the way of skill, 
and there was something almost pathetically youthful 
and inconsequent in the manner both of the patient 
and his nurses. 

“ You see,” said Toffy in his grave low voice, “ I 


PETER AND JANE 


have made up my mind for some time past to travel 
by night, because it saves hotel bills.” 

“ But it doesn’t cost you much to sleep in your 
own bed, Toffy,” protested Jane. 

“ No,” said the young man, looking at her with 
admiration, “ I hadn’t thought of that. I have dis- 
missed my chauffeur,” he went on, “ because he was 
always wanting things. I said to him, 4 My good 
man, get anything you want if you can get tick for 
it.’ He was a maniac about ready money. I got 
oh all right the first forty miles or so after leaving 
London, and I was going splendidly, when my motor, 
to gain some private end, went mad. How do these 
things happen? Thank ’ee, Jane,” as Jane fastened 
a silk handkerchief to serve as a sling for the wounded 
arm. 

“ Providentially the thing broke down at the Car- 
stairs’ very gates,” he went on. The loss of blood 
was making him sick, but if he went on talking he 
would probably not faint — “and it was then three 
o’clock in the morning, so I coaxed it up the drive 
and shoved it into the coach-house, and took their 
motor, which is rather a nice one.” 

“ Then it wasn’t your own machine that you 
smashed up? ” said Peter. 

“ No, thank God,” replied Toffy. 

“ When will the fraud be discovered? ” asked Jane. 
“ Gilbert Carstairs is quite a good sort, but his wife 
has very little sense of humour.” 

“ Oh, I left a note all right in the coach-house,” 


PETER AND JANE 


37 


answered Toffy, “ and I pointed out to Gilbert that 
he had no right to encourage burglaries by having 
inefficient locks on his coach-house doors. I added 
that I thought he ought to be very thankful that it 
was an honest man who had stolen his motor-car.” 

“ Also I hope you said that he might have the loan 
of your disabled one till he had had it thoroughly re- 
paired,” said Peter. 

“ I said something of that sort,” Toffy replied. 
“ And I should think Gilbert would do the right thing 
by the motor. I am only afraid Mrs. Carstairs may 
misunderstand the whole thing.” 

“ One is so liable to be misunderstood by even the 
best people,” said Peter. 

“ You must stay to breakfast,” said Jane presently 
when Peter had seen the invalid safely to bed, “ and 
help me to cheer Aunt Mary up. I am afraid she 
may be a little upset when she hears she has a wounded 
man and a stolen motor-car upon the premises.” 

Peter looked as grave as his pleasant ordinary 
features would allow; he was too much accustomed 
to Toffy’s accidents to take them very seriously, and 
a cheerful stoicism is doubtless the chivalry of mod- 
ern days. . . . “Of course she may think 

Toffy’s action in borrowing the Carstairs’ motor-car 
was a little bit impulsive. And I am afraid she re- 
spects other people’s property in quite an obsolete sort 
of way,” he added doubtfully. 

“ That is rather awkward,” agreed Jane. 

Miss Abingdon appeared at the door of the break- 


38 


PETER AND JANE 


fast room, and Peter kissed her and announced “ that 
here he was, you know,” and hoped she was not very 
much surprised to see him there so early. 

“ I am never surprised,” said Miss Abingdon with 
intention. 

“ I have been thinking,” said the young man pres- 
ently in the peculiarly genial voice which was charac- 
teristic of him, and helped to make him so likeable, 
“ that suppose a policeman should come sniffing about 
here this morning, you had better tell him that there 
is no such thing as a motor-car in the place, and that 
there has never been one.” 

“ That is hardly true, Peter,” said Miss Abingdon 
in the severe manner which she cultivated, “ consider- 
ing how often Sir Nigel is here with his.” 

“ As a matter of fact,” said Peter steadily, “ Toffy 
is here now. He is — he is in bed, in fact.” 

“ Something has happened,” exclaimed Miss Ab- 
ingdon apprehensively. Why was it that youth 
could never be contented without incidents? To be 
young seemed to involve action, while acquaintance- 
ship with Jane and Peter seemed to bring one, how- 
ever unwillingly, into a series of events. 

“ There was a little accident early this morning,” 
explained Peter. “ Toffy was travelling at night — 
to save hotel bills, you know — and there was a break- 
down because he didn’t quite understand the Car- 
stairs’ machine, which he had borrowed ; so poor Toffy 
came off second best, but Jane patched him up most 


PETER AND JANE 


39 


beautifully, and Martin said he had better have the 
blue room.” 

“ Do I understand that Sir Nigel Christopherson 
stole Captain Carstairs’ motor-car in the middle of 
the night, and left his own damaged one in its place,” 
said Miss Abingdon, “ and that he regards this mat- 
ter quite lightly ? ” 

“ Toffy is a cheery soul,” said Peter. 

“ You are all cheery souls,” said Miss Abingdon 
hopelessly. She summoned the butler and sent for 
the village doctor, and made Peter telegraph to Cap- 
tain Carstairs. 

“ You always seem to think of everything, Cousin 
Mary,” said Peter admiringly. 

“ Someone has to,” said Miss Abingdon, with a 
strong touch of superiority in her manner ; and then 
she walked round the breakfast table to where her 
niece was sitting and kissed her, because a few min- 
utes ago she had looked at her severely, and what 
would happen if Jane were ever to prefer the 
Erskines’ house to hers? What if Jane were to pro- 
long the six months which it had been stipulated she 
should spend with her father’s relations in London? 
Jane loved Colonel Erskine too well already. Miss 
Abingdon felt weak as she said, “ Don’t worry any 
more about it, Jane,” for Jane did not look wor- 
ried. “ And now,” she said, “ I must go and see 
how Sir Nigel is.” 

Miss Abingdon still used a key-basket, and hoped, 


40 


PETER AND JANE 


please God, she would never be called upon to give 
up this womanly appendage, whatever the world 
might come to. The jingling of the keys was a 
harmonious accompaniment to her whenever she 
walked about. She bent her steps now down the cool 
wide passages of her charming house to visit her dis- 
abled guest, who she heard was awake. It was part 
of her creed that sick persons should be visited 
whether they themselves desired it or not. In her 
young days nurses were unknown, and one proved 
one’s Christianity by the length of time one remained 
in overheated sick rooms. Still, Miss Abingdon was 
not accustomed to the presence of a sick man in her 
house, and she paused on the door mat before entering 
the room, and said to herself, “ I feel very awk- 
ward.” Then she timidly tapped at the door and 
went in. 

Sir Nigel Christopherson was lying in bed reading 
the Bible. When he was not getting into debt or 
riding races, or playing polo, or loving Mrs. Avory, 
Toffy generally employed his spare moments in read- 
ing the Bible. He was a pretematurally grave 
young man, with large eyes and long eyelashes of 
which he was properly ashamed, being inclined to 
class them in his own mind with such physical disad- 
vantages as red lips or curling hair. Miss Abingdon 
thought that he was generally misunderstood. It im- 
pressed her very favourably to find him employed in 
reading Holy Scripture, and she turned away her 
eyes from the book, which Toffy laid frankly on the 


PETER AND JANE 


41 


outside of the counterpane, feeling that the subject 
was too sacred to comment upon. 

“ How do you feel? ” she said gently; “ you look 
very white.” 

“ Oh, I’m as fit as a fiddle, thanks, Miss Abingdon,” 
said Toffy. 

“ You don’t look it,” said Miss Abingdon with a 
return to her severe manner. 

“ I’m really a very strong chap,” said Toffy. He 
had been delicate ever since he was a little boy. 
School games had often been an agony to him. He 
had ridden races and had lain awake all night after- 
wards, unable through sheer exhaustion to sleep, and 
he had played polo under burning suns, and had con- 
cealed the fact (as though it had been a crime) that 
he had fainted in the pavilion afterwards. He very 
seldom had a good night’s sleep, and habitual bad 
luck, or the effort to conceal his constitutional deli- 
cacy had given him a curious gravity of manner com- 
bined with a certain gentleness, which contrasted 
oddly with his whimsically absurd utterances. No one 
ever looked more wise than this young man, no one 
ever acted with more conspicuous foolishness, and no 
one ever received a larger measure of ill luck than he. 
If Toffy hunted, his horse fell, or went lame. If he 
rode in a steeple chase some accident, the condition 
of the ground, or the position of the jumps made the 
course unusually difficult for the particular horse he 
was riding. Did he play polo his most brilliant hits 
just failed to make the goal. His gravity and his 


42 


PETER AND JANE 


gentleness increased in proportion with his ill-luck. 
No one ever backed Toffy, and no one believed in his 
best efforts. But they borrowed his horses and his 
money, and lived for months as his guests at the huge 
ugly house which was his home, and Toffy accepted 
it all, and philosophised about it in his grave way, and 
read his Bible and loved Mrs. Avory. 

No one but Toffy would have loved her; she was 
quite plain and she was separated from her husband 
— a truculent gentleman who employed his leisure 
moments in making his wife miserable. And she had 
a daughter of ten years old towards whose mainte- 
nance Mrs. Avory made blouses and trimmed parasols 
for which her friends hardly ever paid her. 

The world, with its ever ready explanation of con- 
duct, and its facility in finding motives, ascribed Sir 
Nigel’s chronic impecuniosity to the fact that he con- 
tributed to the support of Mrs. Avory and her little 
girl. Mrs. Avory, who knew quite well what was said 
of her, ate her cold mutton for supper, and econo- 
mised in coals in the winter, and paid her little weekly 
bills and wondered sometimes what was the use of 
trying to be good when so few people believed in 
goodness. 

Toffy came to see her every Sunday when he was 
in London ; or if he did not do so Mrs. Avory wrote 
him long letters in very indistinct handwriting, and 
told him that it was all right, and that she really 
hoped he would marry and be as happy as he deserved 


PETER AND JANE 


43 


to be. And the letters were generally blotted and 
blistered with tears. 

Miss Abingdon put her key-basket upon the dress- 
ing-table and sat down in an armchair on the farther 
side of the room. It upset her very much to see 
Sir Nigel looking so ill, and she believed that to read 
the Bible at odd hours was a sign of approaching 
death. 

“ You must have some beef tea at eleven,” she said, 
and felt glad that she was able to do something in a 
crisis. 

“ I think I was brought up on beef tea,” said Toffy. 
He had accepted with his usual philosophy the fact 
that whether you broke your back or your heart a 
woman’s unfailing remedy was a cup of beef tea. 

“ And I am sure you would like your own servant,” 
said Miss Abingdon. “ I suppose you have someone 
over at Hulworth for whom you could send? ” 

“ My man is an awful thief,” said Toffy, “ which 
is why I keep him. Otherwise I don’t think there is 
a single thing he can do, except put studs in my 
shirts. Hopwood will only steal Peter’s things,” he 
added, reassuringly. “ He tells me my things are 
generally stolen and that I never have anything to 
wear, and so he borrows all he can from Peter. It is 
an extraordinary thing,” said Sir Nigel, beginning 
his sentence with his usual formula — the formula of 
the profound philosopher who has learned to accept 
most things as strange and all things as inexplica^- 


44 


PETER AND JANE 


ble. “It is an extraordinary thing the way all your 
possessions disappear. You try having duplicates, 
but you know, Miss Abingdon, that’s not a bit of use. 
The first man who comes along helps himself, just 
because you’ve two of a thing; so you’re not a bit 
better off than you were before, are you? ” 

The young man turned his blue eyes with their 
long lashes on Miss Abingdon with a look of mute 
enquiry, and threw one arm in its striped pyjama- 
suit up on the pillow. 

Miss Abingdon told herself that she was an old 
woman, and suggested with outward boldness, but 
with inward diffidence, that Sir Nigel required a wife 
to look after him. 

The young man smiled gratefully at her. “ I 
think so, too,” he said simply, “ but then you see she 
won’t have me.” 

They were all so amazingly frank! Kitty Sher- 
ard, the girl who smoked cigarettes in her bedroom, 
had told a funny story one day about a flirtation of 
her father’s, and had made everybody except Miss 
Abingdon laugh at it. 

“ Perhaps,” she said, “ that lady may change her 
mind.” 

“ I don’t think she will,” said Toffy slowly ; “ you 
see she is married already.” 

Miss Abingdon did not discuss such subjects; she 
glanced at her key-basket and moved uneasily in her 
chair. 

“ I am going to revise the Marriage Service when 


PETER AND JANE 


45 


I’m in power,” said the gentle lagging voice from 
under the heavy canopy of old-fashioned chintz with 
which Miss Abingdon, who disapproved of draughts, 
hung all the beds in her house. “ You see it’s like 
this,” went on the philosopher in the sapient tone of 
voice which was peculiarly his own : “ girls when they 
are about eighteen or twenty are full of romance, and 
they all like to have houses of their own and to have 
meals at different hours to those which they have 
grown tired of in their own homes. So they say 
‘ yes ’ to some fellow who proposes to them — per- 
haps in the moonlit garden some night. And they 
enjoy the engagement ring and the wedding gown. 
It isn’t much of a crime, you know, to say * yes ’ to a 
man in the garden on a summer evening, or when the 
band is playing at a dance — I daresay you have done 
it yourself hundreds of times? But it doesn’t seem 
quite fair that if a girl has a beastly time of it after 
she is married, the whole of the rest of her life should 
depend upon having been perfectly delightful to a 
fellow who proposed to her.” 

“ There are some very sad cases of course,” said 
Miss Abingdon, drawing down her upper lip. 

“ And it is so often the good ones,” said Toffy 
from the depths of his profound experience of life, 
66 who have the hardest lines. And that makes it all 
the more unfair, doesn’t it? ” 

Afterwards when Miss Abingdon used to hear a 
great deal about Sir Nigel and Mrs. Avory, and 
when many regrettable things were said about two 


46 


PETER AND JANE 


people to whom at the best of times life was a little 
bit difficult, she used to see the vision of the young 
man with his handsome delicate face, and his head 
bound up with white linen, lying on the frilled pillow 
of the great canopied bed, and the recollection used 
to come back to her of the gentle tones in which the 
youthful philosopher had said, “ It’s so often the 
good ones that have the hardest lines,” and Miss Ab- 
ingdon never failed in loyalty to Toffy, and believed 
in him to the very end. 

She rose now and bade him good-bye, and then she 
glanced at the open Bible on the counterpane, and 
decided once more that young people were inexplica- 
ble, and she clung to her key-basket with a feeling of 
security, and holding it carefully in her hand she 
went down stairs again. 


CHAPTER IV 


Jane meanwhile had walked over to Bowshott to see 
Mrs. Ogilvie and to tell her the news of Toffy’s 
motor-car accident, and why Peter was delayed. She 
came into the drawing-room with its long mirrors in 
their gilded frames, its satin couches and heaped up 
flowering plants, and huge windows looking on to 
the scrupulous gardens and parks. She walked in 
the shortest dress that the present merciful fashion 
allows; a loose shirt hung boy-like on her slender 
figure, and a motor cap with the brim well pulled 
down over her eyes covered her head. She shook 
hands in a manner that discounted altogether her 
short skirt and boyish shirt, because it had in it some- 
thing of the pleasant dignity that goes with good 
breeding. She smiled in a frank, delightful way, 
and regretted inwardly that Mrs. Ogilvie did not 
like being kissed, although disclaiming even to her- 
self the idea that her distaste in this respect had 
anything to do with rouge and powder. She sat 
down on a low chair by the window with the fearless- 
ness of those whose complexions are not a matter of 
anxiety, and she told Mrs. Ogilvie the story of the 
disaster. 

“ Toffy is so awfully unlucky,” said Jane with 
genuine sympathy showing in her eyes and voice, 
47 


48 


PETER AND JANE 


“ and the doctor says his hand will be bad for a week 
at least.” 

“ There is no such thing as bad luck,” said Mrs. 
Ogilvie drily; “success or non-success, bad fortune 
or good fortune, depends only upon will.” 

“ But Toffy is such a dear,” pleaded Jane. “ I 
don’t know anything about his will power, but I know 
that anyone as nice as he is ought really, if he got 
his deserts, to have everything going well with him. 
But instead of that he is always in debt, and his horses 
always come to grief ; and there ought to be a syndi- 
cate formed to buy up all the shares which Toffy 
sells, because it is certain to mean that the market is 
going up. I think he must have been born under 
an unlucky star.” 

“ I used to get a lot of amusement from reading 
the Iliad of Homer,” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “ I know 
you cannot read or write, Jane, so I will tell you 
about it. A great hero on one side comes out to 
fight a battle with a great hero on the other side, and 
their respective mothers — who are generally repre- 
sented as immortal — go to Zeus on Mount Olympus 
to entreat for the lives of their sons. Zeus hears one 
side and grants that the first hero shall be the bravest 
man in the field ; then he hears the other side, but this 
time cunning is used, and the mother of the other 
hero suggests that her son shall be invulnerable to 
blows. And if one wins the battle it is very little 
use, but only a trifle absurd to feel sorry for the op- 
ponent whom one has beaten.” 


PETER AND JANE 


49 

“ I am always sorry for the man who is down,” said 
Jane. 

Mrs. Ogilvie smiled and rang for tea. 

“ You are one of those who can say 4 1 am sorry.’ 
Now I am never sorry and I consider that what is 
called repentance is the function of an idiot. If I 
do a thing I intend to do it. Regret is the most 
weak minded of all human emotions.” 

44 I’m always regretting things,” said Jane, look- 
ing handsome and delightful and treating even peni- 
tence from a fresh open-air standpoint. 44 1 often 
bother myself for days wondering how I am to do 
enough to make up for having done the' wrong 
thing.” 

44 Right and wrong,” said Mrs. Ogilvie with a 
shrug, 44 loving and not loving, believing and not 
believing — only very young people ever make use 
of such ridiculous terms. There is only one law, 
and it is the law of expediency.” 

Jane’s face had been grave for a time, but now 
she began to laugh, and exclaimed, 44 That’s quite 
beyond me ! I know I’m hopelessly stupid, but when- 
ever people begin to talk about whys and wherefores, 
and if it is any good saying their prayers, and whether 
love is the real thing or not, I get fogged directly 
and I always want to go for a ride or a walk, or to go 
and see the horses, or even to go down to the kitchen 
and make jam to get rid of the feeling.” 

44 If you were in the fashion, Jane,” said Mrs. Ogil- 
vie, smiling, 44 you would know not only with which 


50 


PETER AND JANE 


portion of grey matter you said your prayers but 
you would also be able to show scientifically with 
which ventricle of your heart you love and hate ; or 
whether, indeed, love and hate are things not of the 
heart at all, but merely a microbial disease. Will 
you have some tea? ” 

44 Yes, please,” said Jane, 44 and several lumps of 
sugar.” 

44 1 like people,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, 44 who still go 
to church and take sugar in their tea ; it is very re- 
freshing.” 

44 1 must go back now,” said Jane presently, 44 for 
I promised not to be long. By the bye, we want to 
keep Peter to dinner. May we? Or will you mind 
being alone? ” 

44 1 am alone say three hundred and thirty nights in 
the year,” said Mrs. Ogilvie drily. 

44 Won’t you walk home with me and stay, too? ” 
said Jane impulsively. 44 We shall love to have you 
and it is not raining much. Don’t order the car- 
riage, the woods are really lovely just now, and you 
will enjoy the walk after being in the house all 
day.” 

44 Do I look like walking? ” said Mrs. Ogilvie, 
glancing down at her dress with its long train sweep- 
ing the ground. 

44 1 wish we hadn’t asked Peter to stay and amuse 
Toffy,” said Jane with compunction. It was not that 
Mrs. Ogilvie’s dress was singularly inappropriate for 
walking, but there was a tired white look on her face. 


PETER AND JANE 


51 


and an appearance of fatigue in her movements which 
neither her supreme art of dressing nor the careful 
manipulation of light in the room wholly concealed. 

“ Ah, now you are beginning to repent,” said Mrs. 
Ogilvie. Only her good manners prevented her re- 
mark having a sneer in it. “ That will spoil your 
evening, you foolish child, and it will not make mine 
more amusing.” 

“ But I am thinking of you,” said Jane. 

“ Do not think of me,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, laying 
her hand for a moment lightly upon the girl’s shoul- 
der. 

“ Now that,” said Jane to herself, as she started 
on her homeward walk, “ is just one of the nicest 
women that ever lived ! ” 

She walked down the hill-side, and stopped at the 
edge of the wood to see the young pheasants, and 
then went on again, swinging a crooked walking 
stick, and singing in a voice clear and sweet, but 
somewhat out of tune, snatches of songs which she 
had picked up f rom Peter — humming the ridiculous 
words in a sort of unconscious happiness. She walked 
with a raking grace which became her, as wings be- 
come a bird or a long swinging stride a racer. The 
twi-lit woods held no fears for her; imagination never 
peopled Jane’s world with bogies. The perfect poise 
of her figure showed a latent energy and physical 
strength in spite of her slender build, and her bright 
clear complexion and abundant brown hair and white 
even teeth lent an appearance of something essen- 


52 


PETER AND JANE 


tially wholesome and faultless to a face that at all 
times looked handsome and well-bred. 

She called good-night to the lodge keeper as she 
passed through the gates and found her way back 
to the highroad, until by a short cut down the hill 
she reached her aunt’s charming gardens, and the 
wide low house with its air of repose and sweetness 
and the long French windows opening on to the quiet 
smooth-shaven lawns. 

Peter was waiting for her on the doorstep and 
was endeavouring not to fuss ; if only he had known 
by which path Jane would return he would have liked 
to go and meet her, and the fact of having missed 
a walk with her made him impatient. “ I thought 
you must be lost,” he said; “what kept you, Jane? 
Why did you stay so long? ” 

When Jane Erskine was away people were apt to 
ask on her return why she had stayed so long. Miss 
Abingdon and General Erskine, who divided her time 
between them, were jealous if even a day of their 
fair share of Jane was deducted by one or the other. 
There had been times when Miss Abingdon had un- 
scrupulously pleaded illness as a means of keeping 
the girl a little longer with her, and she would doubt- 
less have continued her deceptions had not General 
Erskine adopted the plan of faithfully paying him- 
self back all the days that were owed to him by his 
niece. 

“ My mother says she is going to give a ball,” an- 
nounced Peter at dinner. 


PETER AND JANE 


53 


“ Any other mother would have to be persuaded 
that we all want a dance/’ said Jane. 

“ And the odd part of it is,” Peter went on, “ that 
I don’t believe she cares a bit about that sort of thing 
herself. Dances and dinners bore her to tears. It’s 
awfully good of her.” 

“ The man who designed Bowshott was a dancing 
man,” said Jane ; “ no one else could have arranged 
such a perfect house for a ball. Peter, we will have 
both the houses as full as they can be, and I will 
ask Aunt Mary to stay here and you shall ask your 
mother to stay at Bowshott for it.” 

“ Jane,” said Miss Abingdon, “ you are very ab- 
surd, and just at present you are making most ex- 
traordinary faces.” 

“ I got caught in the rain to-day,” said Jane, 
“ and had to walk with it in my face. I’m quite 
sure that rain must be a skin tightener, like those 
things you see in advertisements.” 

“ It’s given you an awfully jolly colour,” said 
Peter. 

“ Has it? ” said Jane. 

Perhaps a compliment had been given and received ; 
Miss Abingdon did not know. Beauty in itself was 
almost at a discount. Pale cheeks were not in vogue, 
and frankness had superseded sentiment. 

“ What souvenir would they give each other if 
they had to part?” thought Miss Abingdon. “A 
terrier dog, a gun or a walking stick most likely.” 
Faded flowers were quite out of fashion, and old let- 


54 


PETER AND JANE 


ters no longer had the scent of dried rose leaves about 
them. 

Jane obliterated the menu from the porcelain tab- 
let in front of her, by rubbing it with a damask 
table-napkin, and having moistened a pencil she be- 
gan to write a list of names of those people who were 
to be asked to stay for the dance. “ Kitty Sherard 
certainly,” she said and put the name down on the 
tablet. 

“ She’s someone’s niece, isn’t she? ” said Peter. 

“ She’s everyone’s niece, I think,” replied Jane. 

“ Rather rough luck on Miss Sherard,” said Peter. 

“ It’s a fact, though,” Jane went on. “ Really 
and truly, Aunt Mary, each of her relations married 
about ten times, and then the next generation mar- 
ried each other. And they send problems to the puz- 
zle columns of newspapers to find out how they are 
related to each other. Kitty’s father is his own 
great-grandmother, or something complicated like 
that.” 

“ It must give one an immense respect for oneself,” 
said Peter, “ to discover a relationship of that sort. 
One would always be taking care of oneself, and not 
allowing one’s feet to get wet, and thinking what one 
owed to one’s position, and whether one were being 
treated with respect.” 

“ There are fillets of beef coming, and ducks,” in- 
terpolated Miss Abingdon. “ I let you know this, 
Peter, as Jane seems to have erased our only menu.” 


PETER AND JANE 


55 


“ What will Sir Nigel have, do you think?” she 
went on. “ I don’t think he is at all well ; he was 
reading his Bible in bed, and I’m not sure that we 
ought not to send for some of his people.” 

“ Poor Toffy never had any people,” said Peter. 
“ They were all just as unlucky as he is, and most 
of them died violent deaths when they were young, 
and one of them, I know, founded some sort of queer 
religion, so perhaps Toffy takes after him in his 
Biblical researches.” 

At this moment Sir Nigel Christopherson walked 
into the room, looking as white as any ghost. 

“Toffy! You lunatic!” said Peter; “why can’t 
you lie still? ” 

Sir Nigel apologised for being late and declined 
to have anything brought back for him. 

“ How are the Amalekites and Hittites and Gerga- 
shites?” said Peter, making room for his friend at 
the table. 

“ I don’t like the Bible joked about,” said Miss 
Abingdon severely. 

“ Toffy should have been in the church,” said 
Peter, “ even at Eton he was always wondering why 
Cain was afraid that all men should kill him when 
he had only a father and mother, and perhaps two 
or three little brothers and sisters in the world. And 
he used to fret himself into a fever wondering if the 
sun really stood still in Ajalon and what Selah meant 
in the Psalms.” 


56 


PETER AND JANE 


“ I think,” said Miss Abingdon, closing the sub- 
iect, “ that such discussions are best left for Sun- 
days.” 

“ We will go on with our dance list,” said Jane. 
“ Mrs. Wrottesley says she can let us have several 
rooms at the vicarage, or if the worst comes to the 
worst we might have tents in the garden.” 

“ The Canon is always so good-natured,” said Miss 
Abingdon, who believed that a man’s house belonged 
to himself, and whose mind always reverted with a 
sense of peaceful orthodoxy to thoughts of the vicar. 
She mentally decided that he must not be asked to 
receive any of the guests for the Bowshott ball, be- 
lieving that visitors must be always more or less dis- 
turbing to a host. She accepted as part of her gen- 
tle creed that a man’s writing-table must never be 
disturbed, that his dinner must never be kept waiting, 
and that his special armchair must not be appro- 
priated by anyone else. Canon Wrottesley always 
read the morning paper before anyone else in the 
house had seen it, and then imparted pieces of intel- 
ligence to his relations with a certain air of self-con- 
gratulation, as though conveying news which could 
only possibly be known to himself, and it was in this 
way that Miss Abingdon loved to have the items of 
interest retailed to her with instructive comments 
upon politics. With visitors in the house she believed 
that a man might have such divinely established pre- 
rogatives as the first perusal of the newspaper, or the 
chosen hour of dinner put on one side. In illness 


PETER AND JANE 


57 


she always feared that it might be “ an upset” for 
the father or husband of the invalid. And in the 
matter of visitors she always regarded hospitality as 
a species of laudable self-sacrifice on the part of a 
host. 


CHAPTER V 


Mrs. Wrottesley had a theory which she never 
asked nor expected anyone to share with her that 
all men’s mental development ceased at the age of 
twelve years. She had watched five sons grown up 
with, in their young boyhood, the hardly concealed 
conviction that each one of them was destined to 
be a genius, and that each one would make his mark 
in the world. But her sons as they attained to the 
fatal age of twelve years seemed predestined to dis- 
appoint their mother’s hopes. “ Mine cannot be an 
isolated experience,” said Mrs. Wrottesley with the 
insight which although it was generally veiled, did 
not often desert her, and she began to look round 
upon her little world to try and discover if the 
same law of promise followed by failure applied to the 
rest of the world. Most of the men whom she knew 
and whom her sons brought to the house were de- 
lightful boys whatever their ages might be. She 
liked most of them, but she wished sometimes that 
it were possible to meet a man with a mature mind. 
The male interest, she determined after giving much 
study to the subject, centred almost exclusively round 
playing with a ball; give them a ball to play with 
and they were quite happy. There were football 
matches, cricket matches, polo matches, tennis, cro- 
quet and golf, but the aim and object of the most 


PETER AND JANE 


59 


strenuous exertions seemed to be the same, namely 
to send a ball in a particular direction. She had 
heard men extolled as grand cricketers and magnifi- 
cent putters with an enthusiasm which could hardly 
have been greater if they had saved their country, 
or had died for a cause. And she admitted to her- 
self that the mind of a woman was deficient when 
she failed to do justice to these performances. 

Her reflections on this and kindred subjects this 
morning had been induced by hearing of the deter- 
mination of Canon Wrottesley to light the rubbish 
heap in the garden. The rubbish heap had grown 
high, and Canon Wrottesley had determined to put 
a match to it. Mrs. Wrottesley had been married 
too long not to know that whatever at the moment en- 
gaged her husband’s mind it required an audience. 
Her sons also had expected her to watch and ap- 
plaud them did they even in infancy jump a small 
ditch, and she knew that it was the maternal duty, 
and admitted also that it was the maternal pleasure 
to watch and applaud until such time as the several 
wives of her five sons should take her place. 

The whole of the vicarage household was in requi- 
sition as soon as their reverend master had conceived 
the happy notion of firing the canonical rubbish 
heap in the far corner of the kitchen garden. Canon 
Wrottesley engaged the attention of everyone with 
a frank belief in his own powers as an organiser. 
He found himself almost regretting that he could 
not make the matter an occasion for a little gather- 


60 


PETER AND JANE 


ing of friends. He loved society, especially ladies’ 
society, and he purposely kept various small objects 
about his own room which — to use his own expression 
— might make a little bit of fun. There was a mask 
half concealed behind a screen which, if it did not 
provoke a start and a scream from some fair visitor, 
had attention drawn to it by the playful question, 
“ Who is that behind you? 99 There was a funny pair 
of spectacles on the mantel-shelf which Canon 
Wrottesley would playfully place upon his handsome 
nose, and to small visitors he would accompany the 
action by a frolicsome u wowf wowf.” He loved ju- 
venile parties when he could wear a coloured paper 
cap on his head, or tie a paper apron round his 
waist, and he had probably got his canonry by what 
he himself called his social gifts, more than by any- 
thing else. Perhaps he was at his best at a chris- 
tening party, and he had won much affection from 
his parishioners by his felicitous remarks upon these 
occasions. When the gravity of the christening of 
the infant was over Canon Wrottesley always deliber- 
ately relaxed. He chaffed the proud father, told 
the mother that it was the finest baby in the parish, 
and wanted to know whose health he was to drink 
where everyone appeared so blooming. 

“ Now, Mamma,” he said busily this morning, “ let 
us have plenty of nice dry wood to start the blaze, and 
then you must come down to the field and watch us 
put a match to the pile. Cyprian, my boy, where 
are the old newspapers kept? Fetch them like a 


PETER AND JANE 


61 


good son, and then you shall carry a little camp- 
stool down for Mamma to sit upon. Now my coat,” 
he said to his butler, 44 and Cyprian, tell Mary to find 
Papa’s old gloves.” 

Mrs. Wrottesley left her morning’s work to go to 
the meadow, and Canon Wrottesley looked down the 
road once or twice, to see if by some happy chance 
some friend or neighbour might be passing to whom 
he could proclaim his boyish jaunt. The 44 well I 
never, Sir,” even of a rural parishioner did in some 
sort minister to his vanity. An audience was a neces- 
sity to him. He regretted that his cloth forbade 
him to indulge in private theatricals, but he encour- 
aged Shakespearean readings, and often 44 dressed up 
to please the children.” Sometimes of an evening he 
would perform upon the piano, indulging in a series 
of broken chords which he called improvisation, and 
upon these occasions he felt that he was a kind and 
thoughtful master when he set the drawing-room 
door open so that the servants might hear; and his 
servants thought so, too, so it was all eminently satis- 
factory. 

This morning the beauty of the weather having 
inspired him to the part of a schoolboy, he avoided 
a gate and leaped a small fence into the meadow, 
and he waged boyish fun upon grave-faced Cyprian 
who longed to be fishing. He greeted his two gar- 
deners with an air of holiday, and having waved his 
stick to them he called out some hearty remarks about 
the weather. 


PETER AND JANE 


Alas ! When the corner of the meadow was reached 
it was found that the rubbish heap had already been 
fired and nothing of it was left but the smouldering 
ashes. The Canon wondered why people could not 
leave things alone and was inclined to blame Mamma. 
She surely might have known how much he enjoyed 
this sort of thing, and have asked the gardeners to 
leave it to him. 

His boyishness, however, could hardly be repressed 
this morning, and speaking to his fourteen-year-old 
son as though his age might be five or six years, he 
clapped him on the back and bade him 44 never mind ; 
we will go for a merry jaunt to the ruins instead, 
and have a regular big affair, and you shall boil a 
kettle, and we’ll have tea. What do you say, 
Mamma? ” 

Mrs. Wrottesley replied with the enthusiasm that 
was expected of her, and the Canon with a 44 here 
we are and here we go ” sort of jollity conducted 
her indoors to write notes on invitation to friends to 
join the picnic. The Canon dictated the notes him- 
self, and generally finished with a playful word or 
two suitable to each recipient, and when he failed 
at first to hit off the perfectly happy phrase Mrs. 
Wrottesley had to write the note over again. 

In the matter of actually arranging the details 
of the picnic. Canon Wrottesley did not interfere, 
for in the words of his favourite prototype, 44 he 
never disputed his wife’s ability at making goose pie, 
but he begged her to leave argument to him.” 


PETER AND JANE 


63 


Foiled of his morning’s occupation the Canon 
walked up to Bowshott himself with Mrs. Ogilvie’s 
card of invitation. Mrs. Ogilvie frankly and with- 
out a moment’s hesitation refused to be one of the 
party ; a picnic was in her eyes one of those bar- 
barous, not to say indecorous things which she classed 
with bathing in the open sea, or trying on a hat 
in a shop. Why should one sit on the ground and eat 
indifferent food out of one’s lap? Mrs. Ogilvie was 
too sorry but it was impossible; she had friends 
coming, or letters to write or something — at any 
rate she was quite sure she was engaged. Mrs. Ogil- 
vie’s manner always became doubly polite and charm- 
ing when she ignored the customary formalities of 
society, or purposely travestied them. No one could 
ignore social conventions with more perfect good 
manners. Peter would go of course, she said, Peter 
enjoyed eating luncheon in snatches while he hopped 
about and waited on people, but Mrs. Ogilvie pre- 
ferred her meals at home. 

The Canon was disappointed ; he loved getting the 
right people together, and he knew that Mrs. Ogil- 
vie’s rare appearance in the neighbourhood always 
made her a centre of interest at a party. He pro- 
tested playfully against her decision, until a certain 
lifting of Mrs. Ogilvie’s eyebrows made his desire 
for her presence sound importunate, and put an end 
to his hospitable pleadings. 

“ A charming woman,” protested the Canon to him- 
self as he walked down the long avenue of Spanish 


64 


PETER AND JANE 


chestnuts. * A charming woman,” he repeated, for 
one part of Canon Wrottesley always felt snubbed 
when he had been talking to Mrs. Ogilvie, while the 
part of him called the man of the world recognised 
something in her which this country neighbourhood 
could not produce. His boyishness was quenched for 
a moment, but it revived at the sight of Peter riding 
up to the gates of the park. An invitation to the 
proposed merry-making was given, and Peter was 
ever so much obliged, but thought Canon Wrottesley 
had forgotten that the 24th was the day of the 
races. 

The Sedgewick races, although perhaps not im- 
portant from a sportsman’s point of view were at- 
tended by many visitors from London, and had been 
so long established and so generally approved by 
everyone in the county that they had come to have 
a certain local status. They were patronised by 
clergy and laity alike, to whom the occasion was a 
sort of yearly picnic. The race course itself was not 
large, but its surroundings were in every way attrac- 
tive. The short moorland grass made excellent go- 
ing for the horses, and a wood of beech trees quite 
close to the modest grand stand had by right of long 
standing been tacitly allotted to various county fam- 
ilies who brought their lunches and teas there, and 
whose long tressel tables, numbered and allotted by 
the stewards of the course were a favourite meeting 
place for the wide neighbourhood. Canon Wrottesley 
could hardly pardon himself for having forgotten 


PETER AND JANE 


65 


the date of such a notable occasion, and alluding to 
himself as a “ winged messenger ” he hastened to 
pay a number of morning calls such as he enjoyed, 
and to cancel his invitation for a picnic in favour 
of lunch or tea at the race course. Peter said that 
he was going to drive the coach over, and hoped 
that Canon Wrottesley would perch there when he 
felt inclined, and that his mother, not feeling in- 
clined to spend the whole day at Sedgewick would 
join them at tea time. Miss Abingdon and Jane 
were going to be kind enough to take her place and 
act as hostesses at lunch. 

Canon Wrottesley felt that he could not do better 
than see Miss Abingdon in person, and explain the 
change of plans, and he arrived in his friendly way 
just as she and some guests who were staying with 
her were going in to luncheon. Miss Abingdon oc- 
casionally reminded herself that she had not met the 
vicar until long after his marriage and she still more 
frequently assured herself that her feeling for him 
was one of pure admiration untouched by sentiment, 
such as would have been foolish at her age, and at 
any age would have been wrong. But there were 
times like the present when the Canon came in un- 
asked in a friendly way, and hung up his clerical 
hat in the hall, when, without going so far as making 
the matter a personal one Miss Abingdon could un- 
derstand why women married. 

She ordered another place to be laid, and asked 
him to say grace almost with a feeling of proprietor- 


66 


PETER AND JANE 


ship; and she ordered up the particular brand of 
claret which the Canon had more than once assured 
her would be all the better for being drunk. 

Jane came in presently from her morning ride, 
handsome and charming, in a dark habit and a bowler 
hat, and Toffy appeared looking white and thin, 
and protesting that he was perfectly well; and Kitty 
Sherard came in late as usual, and much hoped that 
something had been kept hot for her. 

Kitty Sherard was a decorative young woman, 
with a face like one of Greuze’s pictures, and a pas- 
sion for wearing rose colour. Her father was that 
rather famous personage, Lord Sherard, one of the 
last of the dandies and probably one of the few men 
in England in the present day who had fought a 
duel. He was still thought irresistible by woman, 
and probably the only sincere love of his life was 
that for his daughter Kitty, to whom he told his 
most risque stories and whom he found better com- 
pany than anyone else in the world. The two were 
seldom apart, and went everywhere together, and 
Kitty knew a great deal about life in general and the 
fastest side of it in particular, and retained the face 
of a child and the eyes of a street Arab. She rode 
fearlessly, and generally began to laugh in moments 
of danger, and she had a smile as open and unaffected 
as a little boy’s. 

Miss Sherard was in a wilful mood this morning 
— a mood which, let it be said at once, was one to 
which she was often subject — but it had been more 


PETER AND JANE 


67 


than usually apparent in her for the last few days. 
Without wishing to state the matter too austerely, 
or to judge Miss Sherard’s conduct by too severe a 
standard, it might be said of her that her mood this 
morning as nearly as possible bordered upon down- 
right naughtiness. And the provoking part of it 
all was that Kitty always looked supremely innocent 
and large-eyed and irresistible on these occasions, 
so that instead of getting the reproofs which she so 
richly deserved it was the fashion to pet and spoil 
her more than ever on her most wilful and irresponsi- 
ble days. 

Miss Sherard began by hoping in the politest way 
after she had sat about five minutes at the luncheon 
table, that Miss Abingdon did not mind the win- 
dow being opened, although it was a well-known fact 
that Miss Abingdon held the old-fashioned theory 
that only the furniture should enjoy fresh air, and 
that windows should be opened when rooms were 
unoccupied. So many people rose to do Miss Sher- 
ard’s bidding that Miss Abingdon, of course, found 
it quite hopeless to try and assert herself. And 
later, the servants having left the room the gentle- 
men waited so assiduously on Kitty that Miss Ab- 
ingdon began to get the fidgets, and wished every- 
body would not jump up and down constantly. Kitty 
further had a ridiculous way of eating which Miss 
Abingdon could not approve of. She ate mere mor- 
sels of everything and talked the whole time, very 
often with the air of a gourmet , and she would lay 


68 


PETER AND JANE 


down her knife and fork, having made a meal such 
as a healthy blackbird might have enjoyed, as though 
she had finished some aldermanic feast. She ac- 
cepted a glass of Miss Abingdon’s very special claret 
and never even touched it; and later, in one of the 
pauses of her elaborate trifling at luncheon, she told 
a funny story which made everyone laugh, and 
caused even Canon Wrottesley to wipe his lips with 
his dinner-napkin several times in a hopeless at- 
tempt to conceal the fact that he saw the point of the 
story. 

The worst of it was that Toffy encouraged her in 
everything she said and did; these two had met in 
London this year, and had stayed at the same house 
for Ascot, and it must be admitted by a faithful his- 
torian that in her own particular wilful and provok- 
ing way Kitty had flirted outrageously with him. 
Of course if she had been tried in a court of justice 
for her fault she would have come off with flying 
colours, and have left the dock triumphantly ac- 
quitted. And this, because Kitty’s flirting followed 
no known rules of the old game, and, indeed, was 
not always recognisable expect by experts. She cap- 
tivated elderly gentlemen and grave statesmen and 
sedate bishops by recommending her own particular 
brand of cigarettes to them, and driving them — to 
the peril of their valuable necks — in her high tan- 
dem dogcart, or by telling them with the confidence 
of a child who whispers a secret what horse was going 
to win the Two Thousand. 


PETER AND JANE 


69 


Nearly everyone disapproved of Kitty — mostly, 
perhaps, those who loved her, and she had been con- 
verted quite a hundred times by lovers and friends 
without, however, showing the smallest improvement 
in her behaviour. Miss Sherard, let it be clearly un- 
derstood from the beginning, is not held up in these 
pages as a fitting example of young womanhood, 
and to-day her conduct was more than usually de- 
serving of censure. 

She offered to cut Sir Nigel’s food for him, be- 
cause his right hand was still in a sling; and when 
Miss Abingdon suggested with deliberate intention 
in her voice that a footman should do it for him, 
Kitty pretended that the wounded man could not 
possibly feed himself, and she gave him pineapple 
to eat on the end of her fork, and she poured far 
more than his fair share of cream on to his damson 
tart. 

Jane and Peter encouraged her in a scandalous 
way. When they sat in the verandah drinking cof- 
fee after lunch she showed Canon Wrottesley how to 
blow wedding rings with the smoke of her own fa- 
vourite cigarettes; and she talked to him as though 
his early youth might have been spent in a racing 
stable, and with the air of one expert who talks to 
another. 

“ I hear,” said Canon Wrottesley, when Miss Sher- 
ard had begun to play a left-handed game of cro- 
quet with the crippled young man, “ that Sir Nigel 
is going to ride at the Sedgewick races. I was a 


70 


PETER AND JANE 


fearless horseman myself at one time, so I cannot 
quarrel with him for his decision, but I only hope 
that his hand will be healed by the 24th.” 

“ He has a good mount,” said Peter, “ and I don’t 
think it is much good trying to persuade Toffy not 
to ride.” 

“ Kitty Sherard says she has laid the whole of her 
money on him,” said Jane, 66 so let’s hope that will 
bring him luck.” 

“ I believe,” said the Canon in a manner distinctly 
beatific towards the subject of his remarks, “ that I 
enjoy that little race meeting at Sedgewick as much 
as anything in the year; we must all have our little 
outings once in a way.” 

On the day of the races, for reasons no doubt 
known to himself but hidden from the rest of the 
world, the vicar masqueraded in the character of a 
patriarch. His characters were frequently inconsist- 
ent with his circumstances; often his boyishness ob- 
truded itself quite unexpectedly at board meetings, 
or the parish council, while at other times the mantle 
of the seer or prophet descended upon him on the 
most unauspicious occasions. Had Mrs. Wrottesley 
spoken her mind, which she never did, she might 
have thrown light upon the subject, but she was not 
a convincing woman at the best of times. All her 
life she had kept the woman’s secret inviolate — 
whether or not her husband was a disappointment to 
her. No one knew from his wife whether the little god 


PETER AND JANE 


71 


of a somewhat small effeminate community had feet 
of clay or not. 

Arrived at the very delightful beech wood which 
formed a pleasant place of encampment for tea par- 
ties, Canon Wrottesley could only smile absently at 
picnic baskets and appear wrapt in thought when 
addressed; he might have been mentally preparing 
his next Sunday’s sermon. Miss Abingdon thought 
that he was doing so, and respected him for it; she 
even tried to attune her mind with his, and endeav- 
oured to see Vanity of Vanities in this informal gath- 
ering of friends. 

“We do not think enough of serious things,” she 
said. 

To himself the Canon had ceased to be an actor, 
and every mood had become so genuine a role as to 
be indistinguishable from nature. The vicar’s pre- 
occupied mood impressed Miss Abingdon greatly; 
its very inappropriateness made her feel how fine it 
was, separating as it did the priest from the common 
lay-man. 

In Sedgewick they are very sporting, indeed, for 
two days in each year, and carriage hirers and owners 
of one-horse waggonettes are supposed by less fortu- 
nate people to make their fortunes during the race 
meeting. The weather for the occasion is nearly al- 
ways cloudless, and has been so for so many years 
that the inhabitants of the town have begun to 
think that either they are very clever in arranging 




PETER AND JANE 


the date of their local function, or that the Clerk 
of the Weather is deeply interested in Sedgewick 
races. 

The sun flickered through the clean leaves and 
boughs of the beech wood, so conveniently placed 
near the course, and did its best to lend an air of 
picturesqueness to lobster salads and aspics, and 
shone brilliantly on servants with their coats off un- 
packing hampers, and on rows of long tables and 
people busily engaged in eating. 

In the paddock there was an unusual number of 
horses being led round and round in a ring, and 
some well-known bookies — not often seen at a little 
provincial meeting — were present with their hoarse 
cries and their money bags. Kitty Sherard carried 
a pair of field glasses on a long strap, and con- 
sulted from time to time a little gold-bound pocket 
book in which she added up figures with a business- 
like air. She believed in Ormiston which Sir Nigel 
Christopherson was riding, and she had something on 
Lamplighter as well. She knew every book-maker 
on the course by sight, and had as much knowledge of 
the field as anyone in the ring. And she looked 
exactly like some very beautiful child, and carried a 
parasol of rose-coloured chiffon and frills beneath 
which her complexion and soft eyes appeared to great 
advantage. She smiled whether winning or losing, 
and pretended to eat luncheon with her absurd air of 
being a gourmet . 

At four o’clock in the afternoon it is an accepted 


PETER AND JANE 


73 


custom for everyone to eat a large tea before the 
last race, and then horses are put to in coaches and 
carriages, and those who have attended the meeting, 
whether for business or pleasure, drive back to their 
own homes, or go slowly downhill in a long string to 
the little railway station where for two days at least in 
the year the local station-master is a person of im- 
portance. 

Mrs. Ogilvie arrived at the race course as she had 
promised to do about tea time. She hardly ever 
cared to watch the races, but she stood amongst her 
friends for a time in the pleasant shade of the wood, 
and looked on at the little provincial gathering with 
that air of detachment and hardly concealed boredom 
which she always felt on such occasions. Peter had 
won a rather closely finished race early in the day, 
and he received his mother’s congratulations delight- 
edly, although an onlooker might have been surprised 
at the almost distant way in which she spoke to her 
son. She was exquisitely dressed as usual, and she 
wore her clothes with a carelessness which added to 
a certain look of extravagance very characteristic 
of her. She found herself sitting next Canon 
Wrottesley at tea time, and as his patriarchal mood 
bored her a little she requested him, without a mo- 
ment’s hesitation, and in her perfectly courteous man- 
ner, to ask Miss Sherard to come and speak to her. 
“ Kitty amuses me,” she said with one of her char- 
acteristic shrugs, “ and most people are so dull, are 
they not ? ” 


74 


PETER AND JANE 


Her manner of asking the question was too in- 
genuous to offend; but Canon Wrottesley felt that 
mixed sensation which acquaintanceship with Mrs. 
Ogilvie always gave him — a feeling of resentment 
combined with a desire to please. He rather hastily 
let the mantle of seer drop from him, and said, “ I 
wish our little party was not so much dispersed. 
Mr. Lawrence from Frisby brought two charming 
friends with him,” he continued, giving the small 
item of local news rather pompously, “ and they 
much hoped to have been here to meet you. Fal- 
coner is their name — Sir John and Lady Fal- 
coner. He has just been made minister at Buenos 
Ayres, you know, and he told me that they had once 
had the pleasure of meeting you in Spain years and 
years ago.” 

“ I never remember people whom I have met years 
and years ago,” said Mrs. Ogilvie lightly. Her 
near-sighted eyes with their trick of contracting 
slightly when she looked fixedly at anything narrowed 
as she spoke, and the heavy lids closed almost lazily 
upon them. 

“ They remember you well,” said Canon Wrottes- 
ley with an attempt at a note of flattery in his 
voice without, however, knowing quite where to fix 
it. “ It must have been just at the time,” he went 
on, “ of your little boy’s death.” 

The vicar was a soother of grief by profession, 
and it is possible that while this may not have blunted 
him to the sensibilities of each person’s own indi- 


PETER AND JANE 


75 


vidual sorrow, he had acquired the vicarious stoicism 
of the professional consoler. Probably he had never 
blundered more seriously than in exposing Mrs. Ogil- 
vie’s feelings by a reference to her loss. It was 
years ago now since the child had died, but there 
are some women to whom reserve is as much a habit 
as the wearing of clothes, and to them there is some- 
thing almost indecorous in the unveiling of their hid- 
den minds or hearts. 

Mrs. Ogilvie grew white for a moment, and her 
narrowed eyes were turned on the clergyman with a 
look almost of resentment in them. “ I don’t think 
I want to meet any more tiresome people,” she said 
in a tone that was magnificently impertinent for all 
its lightness. 

Canon Wrottesley was not, as a rule, sensitive about 
his own mistakes, and, indeed, was so little conscious 
of making them that he even blundered with dignity ; 
but he experienced a slight feeling of rebuff at Mrs. 
Ogilvie’s manner, without seeing any cause for it. 

Lady Falconer, meanwhile, had arrived at the tea 
table, and greeted Mrs. Ogilvie with evident pleas- 
ure. 66 1 am afraid you will hardly remember me, 
as it is a very long time since we met,” she said, “ but 
my husband and I always remember how good you 
were to me when I was ill at Juarez.” 

Mrs. Ogilvie rose and shook hands with a pleasure 
that was charmingly expressed. Her eyes were no 
longer half closed, and her colour never varied. 
“ You were ill, were you not? ” she said in a manner 


76 PETER AND JANE 

that was a little vague but polite and sympathetic. 

44 Yes,” said Sir John, “ and you let your maid 
come and nurse her. My wife always said she would 
have died if it had not been for you.” 

44 The climate was abominable,” said Mrs. Ogilvie ; 
44 everyone felt ill there. Why does one go to these 
out-of-the-way places?” 

44 It is very absurd,” said Lady Falconer in a 
friendly way, 44 to be surprised at people growing 
up, yet I can hardly realise that Captain Ogilvie 
whom we met to-day is the little boy who was with 
you at Juarez. How time flies ! ” 

44 It more often crawls, I think,” said Mrs. Ogil- 
vie smiling with her mouth a little twisted to one 
side. And then she rose to go because she never 
stayed long at any party, and not even the fact 
that Sir Nigel Christopherson was going to ride in 
the last race altered her decision. At parting she 
was too glad to have met Lady Falconer, trusted that 
if ever she cared to see a collection of tiresome pic- 
tures she would come to Bowshott, and hoped that 
if the gardens would be of any interest to her she 
would drive over some afternoon when it was not too 
hot and have tea with her — any afternoon would 
do. Had Mrs. Ogilvie been giving an invitation to 
tea in a barn it is probable that her manner would 
have been as distant, as casual and as superb as 
when she suggested with a queer sort of diffidence 
that people might care to see the famous galleries 
and gardens of her magnificent house. 


PETER AND JANE 


n 


“How very interesting,” said Canon Wrottesley 
to Lady Falconer when the carriage had driven 
away, “ you meeting like this.” The vicar’s ac- 
quaintance was not extensive, and that people should 
re-encounter each other or have mutual friends al- 
ways struck him in the light of a strange co-inci- 
dence. 

“ She has not altered much,” said Sir John Fal- 
coner, “ and yet it must be many years since we met ; 
I suppose she never was good looking. Somehow 
one seems unaware of it when one is speaking to 
her.” 

“ I could do nothing but look at her dress,” said 
Lady Falconer good-naturedly. “ How is it that 
everything she wears seems to be in such perfect 
taste ? ” 

“ Mrs. Ogilvie is a rich woman,” said Canon 
Wrottesley, enjoying a proprietary way of talking 
of his neighbour, “ and she is able to gratify her 
love of beautiful raiment. I do not understand 
these things myself,” he went on with a masculine 
air, “ but the ladies tell me that her dresses are all 
that they should be.” 

“ I don’t know what we should have done without 
her at Juarez,” said Lady Falconer in her peculiarly 
kind manner. “ Sir John and I were on our honey- 
moon, and like many other newly married people we 
wanted to be alone — ” 

“Dudley, the artist, told us about Juarez, I re- 
member,” interpolated Sir John, “ otherwise I do not 


78 


PETER AND JANE 


suppose we should ever have heard of the place. 
Dudley had been sketching there.” 

44 I had not a maid with me,” went on Lady Fal- 
coner in her pleasant voice, 46 and Mrs. Ogilvie in the 
kindest way allowed a Spanish woman she had with 
her to do everything for me.” 

44 Mrs. Ogilvie was always devoted to everything 
Spanish,” said Mrs. Wrottesley. 44 Her mother was 
Spanish, and I daresay you know she made her 
home in Spain for six years after the eldest boy’s 
death.” 

44 I did not even know that she had lost a son,” said 
Lady Falconer ; 44 how very sad.” 

The crowds of gaily dressed people about them, 
the shouts of the bookmakers, and the pleasant sense 
of being on an enjoyable picnic contrasted oddly 
with any reference to such banished topics as death 
and sorrow. But the little group at the top of the 
long tea table was separated from the younger mem- 
bers of the party by several gaps in the benches, 
and those who were interested in the races were pre- 
paring to go back again to the grand stand. 

44 1 consider that Mrs. Ogilvie is one of the most 
reserved women I have ever met,” said the Canon 
proceeding to give an epitome of a character which 
he thought he — and perhaps only he — understood. 
44 She is impulsive, yet cautious, clever, yet light- 
minded; for a woman her intelligence is quite above 
the ordinary run, and yet she is often hopelessly 
difficult to convince.” He leaned forward on the 


PETER AND JANE 


79 


table looking handsome and dignified, and his clean- 
shaven face had an appearance more clever than was 
quite justified by his attainments. 

46 I am sure that Mrs. Ogilvie is a woman of deep 
affections,” said Lady Falconer, whose tongue 
seemed framed for nothing but kind speeches. 

“I remember,” said Sir John, 44 how much struck 
my wife and I were that year we met her in Spain by 
her devotion to her son. It seemed to us then almost 
to have a touch of tragedy in it, but that of course 
is now explained by hearing that she had just lost her 
only other child.” 

Lady Falconer turned in an explanatory manner to 
Mrs. Wrottesley — 44 my husband and I were having 
a discussion on this marriage journey of ours,” she 
said, 44 on the subject of how much one would do for 
anyone whom one loved. Sir John was horribly dis- 
appointing, and seemed doubtful whether he would 
tell a lie for anyone. Mrs. Ogilvie, I remember, 
came to our rooms during the discussion, and when 
she left, I, being newly married and very sensitive, 
felt bitterly disappointed that my husband’s remarks 
had been so cautious. I believe I was young enough 
to wish everyone to know that he was devoted to me, 
and I really thought he had failed me by putting 
honour before me.” 

44 1 didn’t mean it personally, Mary,” said Sir 
John, who was now hearing the real cause of his 
wife’s tears for the first time. He looked affection- 
ately at her, and to hide a certain embarrassment 


80 


PETER AND JANE 


he went on, “ Mrs. Ogilvie went further than you, 
didn’t she? If I recollect rightly she said that even 
a crime was justifiable for the sake of one whom one 
loved.” 

“ Poor Mrs. Ogilvie ! 99 said Mrs. Wrottesley. 

The words seemed incongruous. Mrs. Ogilvie with 
her superb air, her contempt for pity, her sumptuous 
manner of living and of dressing, was hardly an ob- 
ject for pity, and Canon Wrottesley felt that his 
wife’s remark was out of place although he was far 
too kind to say so in public. 

There was a lull suddenly in the noise of the race 
course ; the bookmakers’ harsh shouts ceased, and even 
conversation stopped for a moment, and Sir John 
Falconer rose hurriedly from his seat saying that the 
last race must have begun. 

The last race was an interesting event. It was a 
steeple chase for gentlemen riders only, and friends 
of the riders were standing up in the grand stand 
with field glasses to their eyes, watching with ab- 
sorbed attention the horses which were still a great 
distance off on the other side of the course. Jane 
was standing by Peter and Kitty Sherard was quite 
near; she was not looking through the field glasses 
as the others were doing, but she stood leaning 
lightly on the balcony of the grand stand, and with 
her two hands clasped on the wooden rails in front of 
her. 

“ Can you see who is leading? 99 said Jane, and re- 
ceived no answer to her question, and then she saw 


PETER AND JANE 


8U 


that Miss Sherard was not gazing at the race course 
at all. Kitty in fact was looking horribly tired, and 
had ceased to smile with her usual gaiety; also her 
hands which were clasped on the wooden rails before 
her had a strained look about them, and showed 
patches of white where the little slender fingers were 
tightly pressed upon the back of her hand. 

The last race involved taking some big fences it 
is true ; but then Kitty of all people in the world was 
the last to be afraid of a stiff course. It really was 
not like her to keep her eyes turned away from the 
horses until someone quite close to her said, “ Well, 
they’re over the water jump, anyway,” when she sud- 
denly raised her field glasses with hands that were 
trembling a little, and kept her eyes fixed on the 
race. It was going to be a close finish, most people 
thought, and as the horses came round the further 
corner you could have spread a tablecloth over them, 
as men say. Toffy’s horse closely hugged the rails 
and was kept well in hand, while of the two in front 
of him one was showing signs of the pace — which 
had been a cracker, and the other had not much run- 
ning left in him. These two soon tailed off when 
the favourite (dark green and yellow hoops) came 
through the other horses, and rode neck to neck with 
Toffy’s brown jacket. It became a race between these 
two, and it was evident that the finish was going to be 
a close one. 

“ Toffy’s not fit to ride,” said the voice of a 
young fellow who would have liked Toffy to win the 


82 


PETER AND JANE 


race, although he knew better than to back him. 
“ He is as mad as ten hatters to have ridden 
to-day.” 

“ His weight is right enough,” said another manly 
voice with a laugh. “ It’s extraordinary how a man 
of his height can ride so light. Christopherson’s a 
regular bag of bones.” 

“ I wish to goodness they wouldn’t talk,” said 
Kitty suddenly under her breath. 

The two horses came on neck to neck to the last 
fence but one. 

“ By Gad he knows how to ride ! ” went on the 
masculine voice, “ but Spinach-and-eggs is the better 
horse of the two.” 

The ground was in splendid going condition and 
the two horses raced over it ; they could see Nigel 
Christopherson’s face now, and Toffy was smiling 
slightly while the other man’s teeth were firmly set. 
Their two stirrups clanged together as their horses 
rose to the rails and galloped on to the last fence. 

And there of course Toffy’s horse fell; it was not 
his fault, there was a bit of soft ground just where 
he landed, his horse blundered and fell, and the fa- 
vourite rode past the winning post an easy winner. 

The spectators in the grand stand could see Chris- 
topherson pick himself up a moment later and lead 
his horse home ; but there was one moment when the 
horseman behind him took the last jump when for 
a fraction of time it seemed more than possible that 
he might land on the top of Sir Nigel. For a 


PETER AND JANE 


83 


breathless space there was that dramatic silence which 
may be felt when a concourse of people literally 
hold their breath. Miss Abingdon covered her face 
for a moment, and Jane heard Peter say, “ Good 
God!” 

The next moment the danger was over and Jane 
was surreptitiously handing Miss Sherard a hand- 
kerchief drenched in eau-de-Cologne; for Kitty had 
sat down suddenly and her face was as white as a 
sheet of paper. She did not speak, but she looked 
up into Jane’s face for a moment, and the look said 
as plainly as possible, “ I can’t help it ; don’t tell 
anyone.” 

Jane put her arm round her waist and said, “ That 
was a very near thing, Kitty, I’m afraid it has given 
you a bit of a turn.” 

The kind familiar voice had something restorative 
in it, and Jane stood deliberately in front of her 
friend, knowing full well that Kitty would scorn to 
show her nervous fears. No one of course ever funked 
a jump, and it was only because the weather was so 
hot that Kitty had flinched and lost her courage. 
The feeling of faintness was only momentary, for 
the colour came back into Miss Sherard’s cheeks very 
soon, and she laughed and said, “ It was not the last 
jump, Jane, only it has been horribly hot all day; 
besides, you know I had put my very last shilling on 
Toffy.” 


CHAPTER VI 


The ball at Bowshott followed closely on the races 
so all the houses in the neighbourhood were full, and 
the ball room and famous picture gallery received a 
larger number of guests than usual. The place was 
sufficiently near London to allow a number of peo- 
ple to “ run down ” for the dance, and the vast house 
with its noble rooms and corridors was filled with 
colour and movement. There was something impres- 
sive in the great space and width of the ball-room 
with its polished floor, while in the gallery the pic- 
tures of old Masters of some hundreds of years ago 
looked down with their inscrutable faces at the living 
pageant of to-day. Grave-faced Cardinals and 
Kings seemed to follow with their eyes the dancers 
in broadcloth or satin, while at the far end of the 
spacious room an altar piece representing a scene 
from the book of Revelations showed a company of 
Heavenly Host as a background to a buffet table 
crowded with refreshments. The palm houses had 
been emptied to form an avenue of green up the 
middle of the room, and the conservatories had pro- 
vided delicate orchids and sweet-smelling stephanotis 
and roses. Over all the electric light, designed to 
represent as nearly as possible the effect of sunlight, 
glowed brilliantly. Plain faces seemed softened in 

the warm glow of it, and beautiful faces were lighted 
84 


PETER AND JANE 


85 


up by it in a manner that was almost extravagantly 
becoming. 

“ It is only on such an occasion as this,” said Miss 
Abingdon, “ that one really seems to think that Bow- 
shott is put to its proper use.” 

She was talking to a young man of artistic tastes 
who called old furniture delicious, and Spanish bro- 
cade sweetly pretty. “ The modern Englishman,” 
said this young man, “ was made to live in barracks, 
or in the stable. Probably he is only in his right 
place when he is on a horse. Could anyone but he 
live at Bowshott and dress in shabby shooting clothes, 
and smoke cigarettes in a room where Charles I made 
love, and wear hobnailed boots to go up and down 
a grand staircase? ” 

Miss Abingdon sat on a convenient large couch 
where a chaperon might close her eyes, perhaps, for a 
moment towards the end of a long evening, with- 
out being accused of being sleepy. She was the re- 
cipient of many wise nods and hints and questions 
on the night of the ball. 

“How well they look together!” said a lady as 
Peter Ogilvie and Jane came down the line of palms 
together and she left a blank at the end of her speech, 
to be filled in — if possible — by Miss Abingdon. 

“ Jane makes Peter look rather short,” said an- 
other ; “ she should have chosen someone taller.” 

“ I suppose it really will be settled some day,” said 
a third, bolder than the rest. 

“ They went for a ride this morning,” said Miss 


86 


PETER AND JANE 


Abingdon drily, “ and they were positively disap- 
pointed because Sir Nigel Christopherson could not 
go with them.” 

Mr. Lawrence from Frisby — an inveterate gos- 
sip as all the world knew — came up to speak to Miss 
Abingdon and to make himself agreeable. Mr. Law- 
rence was a portly red-faced young man with a high- 
pitched voice like a woman’s. He throve on scan- 
dal, and gossiped like an old housekeeper. Miss Ab- 
ingdon liked Mr. Lawrence, and thoroughly approved 
of him; his views were sound, his opinions were 
orthodox, and he always took her into supper at any 
dance where they met. 

Mr. Lawrence’s manner towards elderly ladies was 
a mixture of deference and bonhomie which never 
failed to give satisfaction ; he could even discuss Miss 
Abingdon’s relatives with her without giving offence, 
and he gave advice on domestic matters. People in 
want of a cook, or of a good housemaid generally 
wrote to Mr. Lawrence to know if he knew of anyone 
suitable for the post, and he recommended houses 
and health resorts to people, and knew to a fraction 
what everyone’s income was. He was a useful mem- 
ber of society in a neighbourhood like that of Cul- 
versham, and was considered an interesting caller. 
It was his ambition to be first with every piece of 
intelligence, and he enjoyed telling news, even of 
a harassing description. Mr. Lawrence believed that 
Miss Abingdon’s niece was already engaged to Peter 
Ogilvie and began by a series of deft questions to 


PETER AND JANE 


87 


try and abstract the definite information that he re- 
quired from her. 

“ Young people now-a-days,” said Miss Abingdon, 
ascribing a riper age to Mr. Lawrence than he alto- 
gether appreciated ; “ young people now-a-days think 
that everything that concerns themselves is what they 
call their own business. They talked as though they 
lived in some desert cave instead of in the midst of 
the world. I am on thorns sometimes when the serv- 
ants are in the room ; after all a man may be only 
a footman, and yet is not necessarily a deaf- 
mute.” 

Peter and Jane meanwhile had strolled into the 
picture gallery with its softly shaded lights and long 
vistas of flowering plants and palms. The two 
walked leisurely side by side up the long room. It 
was characteristic, perhaps, of the age in which they 
lived that it was no longer the fashion for a lady 
to accept the support of her partner’s arm after a 
dance was finished; but in spite of this omission they 
seemed in spirit very near each other. There was 
an aloofness about them to-night which seemed to 
set them apart from the others. Few persons cared 
to disturb them even by a greeting as they sat side 
by side in the corridor, or walked together down the 
long gallery. Jane Erskine had put off to-night 
that air which suited her so admirably of seeming to 
be always under an open sky ; she had left it behind 
with her short skirt and the motor cap which she 
loved to pull down over her eyes. This evening, in 


88 


PETER AND JANE 


shimmering white satin and with a string of pearls 
round her throat she looked what she was, a very 
beautiful and very distinguished young woman. The 
brilliant light of the room seemed to deepen the 
colour in her cheeks, and to bring out the bright tints 
of her hair ; her lips parted in a smile, and her eyes 
had something radiant in them as though all the soft 
bright lights in the room were reflected there. She 
looked altogether so unaffected and beautiful and 
sweet that nothing else was so well worth looking at. 
She and Peter walked together to the long buffet 
table at the end of the room, with the altar piece 
above it, and they ate ices with calm-eyed angels 
looking down at them from the great canvas on the 
wall. Probably even Miss Abingdon would have been 
satisfied at the tone of their conversation ; they spoke 
very little and then only of trivial things. Jane had 
something to say about the beauty of the floral deco- 
rations, and Peter allowed that Sims did that sort 
of thing very well. Once he asked her if she was 
enjoying herself, and Jane said, “Yes, Peter, aw- 
fully,” and some new ray of pleasure broke over the 
young man’s kindly pleasant face. “ That’s right ! ” 
he said, and he asked her pleasantly if she would like 
to continue dancing. They mingled with the throng 
of dancers again, and then, not waiting till the music 
had finished, they left the ball-room by the further 
door where Mrs. Ogilvie was standing. 

Peter stopped when he saw her, and looked a little 
anxiously at her. “You should not be standing, 


PETER AND JANE 


89 


should you,” he said in his kindly way ; (e you look 
tired.” 

Mrs. Ogilvie gave one of her enigmatic smiles. 
“ Who would not be tired ! ” she said ; “ what a bore 
balls are! Send someone to amuse me; I will stay 
here a little longer, in case some tiresome people come 
late.” She sat down on a couch and watched the 
two figures as they passed on down the long corri- 
dors. The mechanical smile of welcome with which 
she had greeted half the county this evening had 
not died away from her face; she sat upright on the 
satin-covered sofa. There was about her an air of 
strength — of eminence almost, which seemed to place 
her genuine ugliness above criticism. Her dress was 
of some heavy purple stuff, which few women would 
have had courage to wear, and the diamonds in her 
hair with their sharp points of radiating light ac- 
centuated something that was magnificent and almost 
defiant about Mrs. Ogilvie to-night. Her short- 
sighted eyes contracted in their usual fashion as she 
watched the couple upon whom her fixed gaze rested 
disappear down the vista of the corridor, and she 
murmured through lips that scarcely parted, “ If 
only it is soon! If only their marriage should be 
soon ! 99 

“ How do you think she is looking? 99 said Peter, 
as without conscious intention they drifted away 
from the dancers into a more distant part of the 
house. “ I don’t fancy she has been quite well lately, 
and she gets tired too easily.” 


90 


PETER AND JANE 


“ I wish she would see a doctor,” said Jane, her 
voice full of feeling, and her eyes clouded for a mo- 
ment ; “ but she hates being fussed over, and one can 
never persuade her to take care of herself. What is 
one to do with so wilful a woman? ” 

They passed the other dancers, many of them sit- 
ting out to rest and get cool in the corridor, and 
then with definite intention, Peter led his partner to- 
wards the little room hung with miniatures and 
plaques, at the further end of the passage. Here 
they found Sir Nigel Christopherson in conversation 
with Miss Sherard. Kitty was talking as lightly as 
usual, deliberately misunderstanding everything that 
was said to her, and being as provoking as she al- 
ways was, and Toffy was so much in earnest that he 
never saw Peter and Jane, but continued to talk to 
the girl beside him. So the two intruders never en- 
tered the room at all, but as they pursued their way 
still further, Peter was thinking about Mrs. Avory 
and wishing to goodness that Toffy had never met 
her. 

The big house seemed too full of people for his 
taste to-night. Every sitting-out room and cor- 
ridor was occupied, and Peter said, “ Let us go to 
my mother’s sitting-room, do you mind, Jane? We 
can get cool on the bridge.” 

Bowshott is a very old house, so old that if it had 
not been for some clever archaeologists who came 
there sometimes and read the old stones as though 
they had been printed paper, no one would ever have 


PETER AND JANE 


91 


known when the earliest part of it was built. Anti- 
quaries agreed that it dated from Norman days, but 
the only portion of the building which was standing 
at that time was a tower at the eastward end of the 
house. It had been almost in ruins at one time, but 
Colonel Ogilvie’s father had restored it, and with a 
considerable amount of skill had connected it with the 
more modem part of the house by a stone bridge on 
a single arch. The whole thing was excellently con- 
trived; the archway lent a frame to one of the most 
beautiful parts of the garden, and the tower, which 
was entered by a strong oak door from the bridge, 
now contained three curious and romantic-looking 
rooms with quaint uneven walls six feet thick, and 
deep narrow windows and heavy oak ceilings. The 
largest of the rooms to which admittance was gained 
by the oak door was Mrs. Ogilvie’s sitting-room. She 
had a curious love of being alone for hours at a 
time — not with the loneliness of being in a big 
house filled with servants, but with that sense of iso- 
lation which was afforded to her by being cut off 
from the rest of the building by the stone bridge on 
its high arch. Here she would spend whole days by 
herself, reading or writing. Above this room, which 
was full of her own particular possessions, was a 
smaller apartment containing a valuable library of 
philosophical works ; and here also were deep chests, 
and the large writing table where she wrote all the 
business letters relating to the estate; and it was 
here she was wont to see her steward and her agent 


92 


PETER AND JANE 


from time to time. No one but Mrs. Ogilvie and her 
son, however, ever entered the room without some 
special reason, and it was too far away from the rest 
of the house for casual visitors to intrude themselves 
there. The short passage within the more modern 
house which led to the bridge, was reached by a door 
hung with a leather curtain securely arranged to 
prevent draughts, and no one ever lifted the leather 
curtain except those who had a right to the rooms 
beyond. 

To-night, however, the house was open to all com- 
ers and it afforded no surprise to Captain Ogilvie 
and his companion, when they had quitted the corri- 
dor and the reception rooms and had left the guests 
and servants behind them, to find a man’s figure be- 
fore them in the short passage leading to the leather- 
covered door. 

44 Who’s that, do you know? ” said Peter when they 
had passed under the curtain and were crossing the 
bridge. 

44 I have no idea,” said Jane ; 44 some stranger, I 
suppose, whom someone has brought with them.” 

44 They don’t seem to be looking after him very 
well,” said Peter ; 44 leaving him to prowl about alone 
and get lost in a great barrack like this. I don’t 
suppose I ought to have asked him if he wanted 
partners, or anything of that sort? Someone is 
sure to look after him.” 

44 Oh, sure to ! ” said Jane, and they passed over 


PETER AND JANE 93 

the bridge together and went into Mrs. Ogilvie’s 
morning-room. 

Having arrived there and secured two comfortable 
chairs, the power of speech seemed suddenly to have 
deserted two persons whose conversation was never 
brilliant, but who at least were seldom hard up for 
anything to say. It appeared as though Peter Ogil- 
vie had brought Miss Erskine to this distant room 
for no other purpose than to say to her in an absent- 
minded sort of way, and not in the least as though 
he was thinking what he was talking about — “ Is 
everyone enjoying themselves, do you think, and 
have all the girls got partners ? ” 

The Bowshott ball was a red-letter day in the cal- 
endar of a quiet and somewhat parsimonious county 
society, and the young ladies organised their dress 
allowances with a view to purchasing at least one 
good gown should Mrs. Ogilvie give a dance as 
usual. 

“ 1 think everyone is enjoying themselves,” said 
Jane, and added with characteristic frankness, “ I 
know I am.” 

Peter gave her a quick glance, turning his eyes full 
upon her for a moment as though to read something 
in the face beside him; then he began with absorbed 
attention to twist the silk string of his ball pro- 
gramme round and round his finger. The room 
where they sat was singularly unlike the rose-shaded 
bowers which are provided for dancers to sit in dur- 


94 


PETER AND JANE 


ing the evening of a dance. Its austere furnishing 
had something almost solemn and mysterious about 
it, and the stone walls hung with tapestry on which 
quaint figures moved restlessly with the draught from 
an open window, would have given an eerie feeling 
to a man for instance sitting alone there at twelve 
o’clock at night. But now amidst all the gloom and 
austerity of the still and distant chamber sat Jane, 
in white satin with pearls about her neck, and the 
room was illumined by her. 

“ So you are enjoying yourself,” said Peter at 
last — Peter who never made fatuous conversational 
remarks of this sort. The words for no reason in 
themselves fell oddly, and were followed by a silence 
which was disturbing and made for sudden self-con- 
sciousness wholly to be condemned and banished if 
possible directly. Jane, who never fidgeted aim- 
lessly with things, nor toyed with what was in her 
hand, began diligently to pluck a long white feather 
out of her fan, and then she closed the spread feath- 
ers together, and said in a voice that was deliberately 
commonplace, “ We ought to go back now, oughtn’t 
we? Let me see who your next partner is, Peter, that 
I may send you back to dance with her.” 

She stretched out her hand for the young man’s 
ball programme, but Peter sat absorbed, twisting its 
silk cord round his finger. 

“ Don’t let’s go yet,” he said, and the constrained 
silence fell between them again. 


PETER AND JANE 


95 


66 1 want to ask you something, Jane,” he said 
presently. 

“ Yes,” said Jane. Her hands lay idle now in her 
lap, and she no longer tried to extract the white 
ostrich feather from her fan. 

“ I want to know if you think you can care for 
me a little? ” 

Probably when a man feels most deeply his utter- 
ances are the most commonplace, and an Englishman 
is proverbially incapable of expressing his feelings. 
In the supreme moments of their lives it is true, a few 
men, and those not always the most sincere, may speak 
eloquently; but for the most part a proposal from 
an Englishman is — as it should be — a clumsy thing. 
Peter Ogilvie could only speak in such limited lan- 
guage as he always used. Yet for all that the world 
seemed to stand still for him just then; for he knew 
that everything in his heaven or upon earth depended 
for him upon what Jane’s answer would be. 

“ Don’t let me bother you,” he said at last, “ or 
rush you into giving an answer now if you would 
rather wait.” 

Perhaps a declaration of love from an old com- 
rade is the most dear as well as the most embarrassing 
of all such avowals. A heart that has already given 
itself in loyalty and affection to another finds that it 
is not a deepening of this loyalty and affection that 
is asked, but that a complete re-ordering of things is 
demanded. The lover’s petition, therefore, either 


96 


PETER AND JANE 


comes to the woman as a revelation, betraying to her 
in a flash that she has loved always and has merely 
been calling the thing by another name, or else it 
finds her impatient at the disturbance of an old com- 
radeship — a cherished friendship, which nothing but 
this foolish exacting thing called love could ever 
shake. 

Peter was not versed in introspective questions or 
hair splittings ; he loved with his whole heart, and he 
had tried to say so without very much success, he was 
afraid. Just then he would have given anything 
he possessed to be endowed with a little more elo- 
quence, though deep down in his heart he had a 
lingering hope that perhaps Jane would understand. 
“ It’s neck or nothing,” he was saying to himself in 
the homely jargon in which he usually formed his 
thoughts. “ God knows I may have been a fool to 
speak.” 

“ Peter,” began Jane shily. And Peter ceased 
twisting the silk cord of the programme round his 
finger, and they turned and looked at each other. 

“ Is it true ? ” he said at last with a queer kind 
of wonder in his voice ; he kneeled down suddenly on 
the floor beside her and gravely kissed her hand. 

“ Let us go into the garden,” he said ; his instincts 
remained primitive, and just then this room was too 
narrow for all he felt, though it seemed to him that 
the large things of the night and the glory of the 
stars were the only environment that he could bear 
just then. 


PETER AND JANE 


97 


Passers-by, had they been mean enough to pause 
outside the sheltering yew hedge where they sat, 
might have questioned the poetry of their love-mak- 
ing, and have condemned an avowal of devotion that 
was punctuated by barbarous slang. But the silence 
that fell between the two now and again was deeper 
than speech ; and perhaps the moon — an inquisitive 
person at the best of times — as she peeped over the 
grey turrets of the house, saw the dawn of a love as 
single-hearted and genuine as ever analytical novel- 
ists have described. 

Neither of these was an unusual character, nor 
heroic in any way ; they were happy, light-hearted 
people, without, perhaps, very much to recommend 
them, except a certain straightforwardness of vision 
which abhorred, as by a natural instinct, circuitous 
or crooked things, a transparent honesty, and a sim- 
ple acceptation of those obligations which race and 
good breeding demanded. 

At present out there in the garden on the stone 
seat, set in the cleft of a high yew hedge, they were 
somewhat oblivious of everything in the world except 
each other and the immense discovery of love. 

They were the last to hear the cry of fire, which 
rang out from the house, and they were still sitting 
undisturbed while men were running with hoses and 
buckets and there was a clamour in the stable yard 
for more water, and the clatter of horses’ hoofs as a 
groom galloped off for the fire engine. The formal 
garden where they sat was distant a long way from 


98 


PETER AND JANE 


the house, and it was not until the heavy smoke rose 
up against the sky that Peter’s attention was at- 
tracted, and he realised that the Norman tower was 
on fire. 

“ By George ! ” he exclaimed, and ran to the place 
where grooms and helpers, gardeners and strangers’ 
coachmen, and waiters and guests were standing with 
hoses and buckets, pouring a ridiculous little stream 
of water against the burning pile. The fire had be- 
gun in the roof and the smoke was pouring from the 
narrow lancet windows in the tower. No flames had 
shot up yet, and the fire engine from Sedgewick, 
prompt and well served as it always was, might be 
here any minute. The oak room would burn slowly, 
and the walls were secure, but the tapestry in the 
lower room was dry and old, and would fire like a 
bundle of shavings. An effort was made by a body 
of men to force an entrance into the lower room and 
save what they could; but they were beaten back by 
the smoke which came in volumes down the turret 
staircase, and by the flames which now began to shoot 
up here and there against the darkness of the night. 
One poor fellow, half suffocated with smoke, had 
fainted, and had been pulled back with difficulty by 
the others, and now there was nothing for it but to 
safeguard the main building. The wind was setting 
towards it from the tower, and a party of men were 
up on the roof treading out burning sparks and play- 
ing water where slates were hottest, or ashes might 
burst into flames. 


PETER AND JANE 


99 


Mrs. Ogilvie stood on the terrace in her magnifi- 
cent purple gown, her red hair with the flashing dia- 
monds upon it, and long-handled glasses held up to 
her near-sighted eyes. 

“ So that goes,” she said, shrugging her shoul- 
ders. “ Well, it will give me a good deal of trouble ; 
or is it fate, I wonder, and is silence the best thing 
after all? ” 

Peter was directing a body of men to play water 
on the bridge, and garden and stable hoses were 
turned full upon it by relays of helpers, and some 
long ladders were placed against the windows to see 
if it were possible in that way to effect an entrance 
and save some of the valuables in the room. The 
whole of the guests — women in light ball dresses and 
bare shoulders, and men in evening dress, had surged 
out on to the terrace and were watching with fas- 
cinated eyes the work of destruction going on in 
front of them. Every ear was strained to catch the 
first sound of the fire engine on the road from Sedge- 
wick, and some twenty or thirty couples more impa- 
tient than the rest had run to a distant knoll, from 
whence the road was visible, to peer through the dark- 
ness to see if anything was coming. The stars shone 
serenely overhead, and the moon was turning the 
water in the fountains to cascades of silver, while 
still from turret and roof the volumes of grey smoke 
belched forth, and still the feeble garden hoses played 
upon the bridge. 

It was just then in the clear light of the moon 


100 


PETER AND JANE 


that what seemed almost like an apparition appeared 
upon the bridge. A man not above medium height 
with a cloak hastily thrown about his head to pro- 
tect him from the smoke dashed across the bridge, 
was sprayed upon by the fall of water and entered 
the turret room. People asked each other fearfully 
who he was. Many, strangely enough, had not seen 
the figure ; the sudden dash through the smoke had 
not occupied a moment of time, and most eyes were 
directed towards the roof of the building, and others 
were turned towards the Sedgewick road. Those 
who had seen it turned amazed eyes upon each other ; 
women clutched hold of the person nearest them, and 
Jane Erskine, seeking half wildly for someone in 
the crowd, found Peter and said to him, 6< What is 
it? Who went in there just now? Oh, Peter, for a 
moment I thought it was you ! ” 

There was a wild shout of warning, but it was too 
late for the man, whoever he was, to turn back; he 
was inside the tower now and no shouting could save 
him. Some prayed as they stood there murmuring, 
“ Save him, save him ! ” as instinctively men and 
women will pray even when the life for which they 
plead may carry with it such sorrow as they never 
dreamed of. 

Then to the sounds of a yell and a cheer the fire 
engine from Sedgewick turned the corner of the road 
magnificently, for that fine old Jehu, Tom Ellis, was 
driving, and the white horse on the near side knew 
as well as any Christian how to save an inch of road. 


PETER AND JANE 


101 


There was a wild hurrah from the group stationed 
on the knoll, as the fire engine, all gleaming with 
brass fittings and flaming red paint, clattered to the 
door and pulled up with the precision of clockwork, 
exactly on the spot from which hoses could be 
played; and eight bearded men in helmets leaped 
from their seats and got their gear in order with the 
coolness of blue- jackets in a storm. The old white 
horse stood to attention like an old soldier on a field 
day, and Tom Ellis wiped his brows as though he 
himself had run in the shafts all the way from Sedge- 
wick, and was much heated in consequence. 

No one could save the interior of the tower; that 
was past praying for, and a shout went up that there 
was a man inside, and the firemen threw their ladders 
against the walls and prepared their scaling irons 
and life-saving apparatus. The smoke rolled out in 
dense volumes now, and through the gloom a voice 
shouted, “ It’s all right, he’s crossed the bridge 
again.” 

“Oh, are you sure, are you sure?” said Jane 
frantically, and it haunted her for long afterwards 
to know if the man had actually escaped the fire, for 
nothing was heard of him again, and it was only after 
Peter had ordered a fruitless search to be made 
amongst the debris in the tower that she felt satis- 
fied of the stranger’s safety. 

A report got about that a gallant attempt had 
been made to save some valuables in the tower, and 
the local press in search of interesting details went 


102 


PETER AND JANE 


so far as to head one of their columns, 66 A gallant 
act.” 

A thieving valet read the paragraph, and pon- 
dered over the heading of the same. Next he knocked 
the ashes out of his pipe by tapping the bowl against 
his boot, after which he said thoughtfully, “ Unless 
he was after loot.” 

The valet’s character being notorious, his opinion 
was not listened to, or if it was it was merely taken 
as evidence of a low mind naturally prone to sus- 
picion. Besides, there was nothing of value in the 
tower rooms except the old furniture and books and 
tapestry on the walls, and these had all been de- 
stroyed. A lady’s writing-room was not worth plun- 
dering, and in the confusion attendant on the fire, and 
while silver and jewels were unguarded it was a cred- 
itable fact that nothing was missing from the house. 

The ruined interior of the tower smouldered for 
the whole of the next day, but the walls still stood 
gaunt and grim, windowless and gutted by the fire, 
and no damage had been done to the rest of the 
house. Several elderly gentlemen remembered well 
how prompt their instructions had been to servants 
as soon as the fire was discovered, and how a few 
words from them had prevented a panic. 

Ladies thought that on the whole they had kept 
their heads very well, and the fire at Bowshott was a 
vivid experience which they remembered and talked 
of all their lives. A few nervous headaches, the re- 
sult of shock, attacked some of the fair members 


PETER AND JANE 


103 


amongst the crowd, and subsequent colds were as- 
cribed to that dramatic and awful period of waiting, 
when ladies had stood with bare shoulders and un- 
covered heads waiting for the fire engine to arrive. 
But on the whole those who had not suffered from 
the effect of the fire found very little to regret in the 
circumstance. The building was covered by the in- 
surance, and even the loss of the tapestries were more 
than compensated for by the fact that an absorbing 
topic of general interest had been provided in a quiet 
and uneventful neighbourhood. 


CHAPTER VII 


It was a matter of necessity with Mrs. Ogilvie to 
purchase a new dress for the wedding; wherefore 
in the week following the night of the ball she went 
to London for the day, while builders and carpenters 
were already at work repairing the ruined tower. 

“ It will be a bore,” she said, “ to go up and see 
about it later when the house is full. Is it absolutely 
incumbent upon me as the mother of the bridegroom 
to wear grey satin, or have I sufficiently scandalised 
my neighbours all my life to be able to wear what I 
like? ” 

Usually her maid accompanied her when Mrs. Ogil- 
vie went up to London for the day ; but in her wilful 
way she had decided to-day that maids were useless, 
and that her present maid had round eyes that stared 
at her from the opposite side of the carriage when 
they travelled together. In short, Mrs. Ogilvie in- 
tended to go to London alone. 

She departed with some sort of idea of enjoying 
the expedition; the purchase of clothes was a real 
aesthetic pleasure to her, and even the feel of the 
pavements in the world-forsaken London of Septem- 
ber had something friendly about it, that spoke to 
her with an intimacy and even a kindliness such as 
she never experienced among country sights and 
sounds. A morning at Paquin’s revived her as sea 
104 


PETER AND JANE 


105 


breezes would have revived other women; and from 
her point of view it was only one of the decencies of 
life to go and have her hair dressed by a Parisian 
coiffeur. Then there was lunch in a room pleas- 
antly shaded from the sun, and decorated with a fair 
amount of taste. But the food was uneatable, of 
course, Mrs. Ogilvie could never get a thing to eat 
that she liked. 

It was nearly four o’clock before the brougham 
which had met her at the station in the morning drew 
up before a door in deserted Harley Street. An 
elderly man-servant with a quiet precise manner 
showed her into the doctor’s waiting room, and Mrs. 
Ogilvie sat down and began turning over with inter- 
est the pages of a fashion magazine. 

“ I think I know the worst,” she said to the famous 
surgeon whom she had come to consult when he led 
her into his room ; “ what I want to know is can you 
put off this tiresome business until after my son’s 
wedding? ” 

He asked her quietly her reason for the delay ; few 
people argued with Mrs. Ogilvie; there was a flexi- 
bility about her which made protest impossible. He 
knew that the case was a hopeless one, but life might 
certainly be prolonged if she would submit to treat- 
ment without delay. 

“ Why should you put it off? ” he said, “ even 
five or six weeks may make an enormous difference.” 

“ I always put off disagreeable things,” said Mrs. 
Ogilvie lightly. 


106 


PETER AND JANE 


A London doctor probably knows many cases of 
delicate and sensitive women who will fret over a 
crumpled rose-leaf and die with the calm courage 
of a martyr; but the woman who would deliberately 
throw away her chances of life was a novelty to the 
famous specialist. He looked keenly at his patient 
for a moment out of his deep eyes. 

“ I have never known a case of this sort in which 
there was not an immediate effort at concealment,” 
he said to himself, “ and women conceal most of 
their sicknesses as if they were crimes.” Aloud he 
asked her what was the earliest date at which she 
could put herself into his hands. 

“ It is a great bore coming at all,” said Mrs. Ogil- 
vie with that sort of superb impertinence which dis- 
tinguished her and was hardly ever offensive; 66 but 
let us say in a month’s time. The wedding was not 
to have been till late in November, but my son and 
Miss Erskine are quite absurdly in love with each 
other, and it will not be difficult to persuade them to 
alter that date for an earlier one.” 

“ If you have positively decided to postpone treat- 
ment,” said the surgeon, “ I can say nothing more 
except to tell you that you are minimising your 
chances of recovery.” 

Mrs. Ogilvie gave one of her twisted smiles. “ I 
don’t feel in the least bit like dying yet,” she said. 

“ Were you to put yourself into my hands at once,” 
he urged, “ it is possible that you might be sufficiently 
recovered to go to the wedding in November.” 


PETER AND JANE 


107 


“No one is to know anything about it,” said Mrs. 
Ogilvie quickly and decisively. “ If my son is mar- 
ried in October I can come up to town as I always 
do in November and go into one of your tiresome 
nursing homes. Probably the wall papers will offend 
me, but at least I shall not have the whole of a 
country-side discussing my helplessness and the vari- 
ous stages of my illness. Ye gods! They would 
like to ask for details from one’s very footmen at the 
hall door ! ” 

It was useless to say more ; the surgeon’s voice was 
full of pity as he recommended diet and made out a 
prescription. 

“ Everything is talked about in these days, I ad- 
mit,” he said, “ and I think no one regrets the decline 
of reserve more than we doctors do ; but you are car- 
rying a desire for concealment too far.” 

Mrs. Ogilvie was drawing on her gloves and but- 
toning them with an air much more grave and intent 
than she had bestowed upon her doctor during the dis- 
cussion of her health. “ Even an animal,” she said 
lightly, “ is allowed to creep away into the denseness 
of a thicket and nurse its wounds ; but we superior 
human beings are like the beggars who expose a 
mutilated arm to the pitiful, and would fain show 
their wounds to every passerby.” 

“ Perhaps you will allow me to write to your son,” 
said the surgeon. 

Mrs. Ogilvie replied by a quick and unequivocal 
answer in the negative ; then relaxing a little she said 


108 


PETER AND JANE 


more lightly, but with intent, 44 1 have always tri- 
umphed over difficulties all my life, and I have always 
overcome.” 

“ That is quite possible,” said the physician 
gravely. 

Mrs. Ogilvie stood up and began to arrange her 
veil before the mirror which hung above the mantel- 
piece ; and as she did so she glanced critically at her 
face under the large fashionable-looking hat with its 
sweeping feather. 

44 I am very plain,” she said with a sort of sensuous 
enjoyment in her frankness, 44 and yet I have passed 
successfully for a beautiful woman most of my life. 
I am also what is ridiculously called a power in so- 
ciety, and I owe everything to my own will. I detest 
unsuccess l ” 

44 You are talking of the success which lies in the 
hands of every clever woman,” said the doctor ; 44 but 
your health is another matter.” 

44 1 believe in my good luck; it has never failed 
me,” said Mrs. Ogilvie as she shook hands and said 
good-bye. 

When she reached home she dressed in one of her 
sumptuous gowns, for a score of country neighbours 
were coming to meet Jane Erskine as the fiancee of 
her son. Her maid bore the brunt of my lady’s sar- 
casm during the time of dressing, and was given a 
curt notice of dismissal before the toilet was com- 
plete. The woman’s round big eyes which were so 
obnoxious to her mistress filled with tears as she ac- 


PETER AND JANE 


109 


cepted her discharge. And Mrs. Ogilvie, descending 
the broad staircase of the house with her air of mag- 
nificence, her jewels and her red hair, rapped her fan 
suddenly and sharply on her hand so that the delicate 
tortoise-shell sticks were broken. 44 Why does she 
look at me like that ? ” she said to herself. 44 1 am glad 
I dismissed her, and I am glad she cried! Why 
should not someone else suffer as well as I? 99 she said 
fiercely below her breath. 

44 You are not really tiresome, Jane,” she said after 
dinner as the two sat together on a couch. 44 1 have 
never known another engaged young lady whom I 
did not avoid ; but you are bothering your head quite 
unnecessarily about me. When I look tired, for in- 
stance, you may take it as a sure sign that I am 
bored; nothing ever really makes me feel ill, except 
dulness.” 

44 Still,” urged Jane, 44 Peter and I want it so 
much; we think if you were to get advice from a 
doctor it would make us feel so much happier about 
you.” 

44 1 never allow anyone to discuss my health with 
me,” said Mrs. Ogilvie ; 44 it is only a polite way of 
pointing out to one that one is looking plain.” 

Jane took one of her hands in hers with an im- 
pulsive gesture, and printed a kiss upon it. 

44 Do sit upon me when I begin to bore you, or to 
say the wrong thing! I believe for a woman I am 
quite unpardonably clumsy and tactless.” 

44 Have you ever discovered,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, 


110 


PETER AND JANE 


“ that tact is becoming a little overdone, and that it 
generally succeeds in accentuating a difficult situa- 
tion, or in making it impossible? Women are hor- 
ribly tactful as a rule, and that is why men’s society 
is preferable to theirs. If you tread on a man’s foot 
he will no doubt forgive you, while admitting that the 
blow was painful, but a woman smiles and tries to 
look as though she really enjoyed it.” 

“ Promise never to endure me in silence,” said Jane, 
laughing, “ even when I am most tactless ! ” 

“ Silent endurance is hardly my character,” said 
Mrs. Ogilvie, screwing up her eyes. “ I dismissed 
Forder before dinner because she annoyed me.” 

“ Please take Forder to your heart again to-mor- 
row morning,” said Jane; “ she keeps Martin in such 
a good temper.” 

“ No,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “ I shall get a new maid 
when I go up to London in November; Forder has had 
round eyes for such a long time, and she is hope- 
lessly stupid about doing my hair.” 

Mrs. Ogilvie always spoke about her hair with a 
touch of defiance in her voice. It was so undis- 
guisedly golden that probably only Jane Erskine and 
Peter ever believed that it was not dyed. 

“ What were we talking about ? ” she said pres- 
ently. “ Oh, yes, I was saying that you were not 
tiresome, although you are engaged to be married. 
All the same I am going to try and persuade you and 
Peter to have the wedding sooner than you intended.” 

46 Why?” said Jane simply. 


PETER AND JANE 


111 


“ I am sick of Bowshott,” said Mrs. Ogilvie lightly. 
“ By the bye, I believe I am going to make it over 
to you and Peter when you marry. Why should I 
act as custodian to a lot of grimy pictures which don’t 
amuse me the least bit in the world! And walk in 
these formal gardens where I don’t even meet a 
gardener after ten o’clock? A prison life would 
really be a pleasant change! I shall go to London 
when you are married — it is the only place except 
Paris where one really lives. I must have the house 
in Berkeley Square painted — and oh ! there are heaps 
of things I want to do. Must I really go into them 
all? ” 

“ When is the wedding to be ? ” asked old Lord 
Sherard sinking on to the sofa beside Miss Erskine, 
when he and the other gentlemen returned from the 
dining-room. He was a singularly handsome old 
gentleman with handsome features and thick grey 
hair, who had broken many hearts in his day, and still 
could prove irresistible to the fair sex. 

“ Jane and I have just been deciding that the wed- 
ding is to take place in the middle of October,” re- 
plied Mrs. Ogilvie in her cool decisive voice. 

Jane laughed and caught Peter’s eye, and he drew 
her aside when he could, and said with that candid 
open look on his face which made it so attractive in 
spite of the very ordinary features, “ Is it true, 
Jane? ” 

Jane nodded her head. There was no reason for 
delay ; the building and repairing of the tower would 


PETER AND JANE 


119 

hardly interfere with the other parts of the vast 
house. She, like Peter, was quite satisfied that their 
wedding should be at an earlier date than was at first 
suggested. They had known each other all their 
lives ; why postpone the happy time when they should 
be married? 

So wedding invitations were written and despatched, 
and wedding gowns were ordered, and wedding pres- 
ents came flowing in. Tenants presented silver bowls 
and trays and servants gave clocks and illuminated 
addresses, and the Ogilvie family lawyer came down 
to stay with his clerk and was hidden away some- 
where in the big house, where he wrote busily all day 
and made wills and transferred deeds and wanted sig- 
natures for this thing and for that through half the 
autumn mornings. 

“ I see nothing for it,” said Jane, “ but to post- 
pone getting my trousseau till after I am married. 
If I succeed in getting a wedding dress and some- 
thing to go away in by the twenty-sixth I shall con- 
sider myself lucky ! ” 

There was a curiously happy note in Jane’s voice 
in those days, which those who heard it remembered 
long afterwards. Happiness had always appeared to 
be her birthright, and en j oyment her special privilege. 
There was a settled confident look in a face that had 
always been charming in expression, and with it a 
fineness of reserve which seemed to steady emotion 
and make for something that was stable and unchange- 
able and incommunicable. Jane’s mind, it has been 


PETER AND JANE 


113 

said more than once, was not intellectual, but it was 
as perfectly balanced as her body, and seemed in di- 
rect harmony with all that was good in the world. 
No one had ever seen her out of temper, and cer- 
tainly no one had ever seen her irritable. If she got 
fewer thanks than most people it is equally certain 
that she expected fewer, and, indeed, would have been 
very much embarrassed by them. The jealousy and 
envy to which young ladies are popularly supposed 
to be a prey were unknown to her, and scandal passed 
her by, finding nothing in her five-feet-eight of 
healthy well-built young womanhood to correspond 
to its own baseness. 

From all of which account of Jane it may reason- 
ably be concluded that she was not an analytical char- 
acter, nor one given to nerves or disorders of that 
sort, while at the same time it may be assumed that 
her mental powers were not above the average, and 
that she was singularly obtuse sometimes about the 
very things which would have ministered to her own 
advantage ; also that she took each day as it came 
and with a sense of joy that was not always particu- 
larly far-seeing or practical, and she never wondered 
for a minute whether she was good or bad, and would 
have been quite incapable of pulling her soul up by 
the roots to see how it was growing. But there are 
few, perhaps, who could leave the period of girlhood 
behind them with a more heartfelt feeling of having 
enjoyed every day of it, and few also to whom more 
cordial good wishes could be sent. Everyone had 


114 


PETER AND JANE 


something kind to say to her; every present which 
she received was probably the outcome of real good 
feeling and affection. And Jane thought they were 
all extraordinarily pretty, and neither knew nor cared 
whether they were made of electro-plate or real sil- 
ver. She and Peter used to make a triumphal pil- 
grimage sometimes through the morning-room where 
the gifts were displayed, and think what a wealth of 
beautiful things they had, and how perfectly angelic 
everybody had been to them. 

Miss Abingdon, to whose early Victorian mind a 
wedding was still an occasion for tears, sighed over 
her niece’s engagement because Jane never came 
to her room at night and watered her couch with 
tears, nor had doubts nor presentiments nor mis- 
givings. 

“ She seems to have so little sense of responsibility,” 
she sighed to Mrs. Wrottesley, whose visits at this 
trying and responsible time were a cause of nothing 
but comfort to her. 

44 I know,” said Mrs. Wrottesley in the hesitating 
manner of the woman who might have been 44 ad- 
vanced ” had she not married a clergyman — 44 1 know 
it may seem to you irreverent to say so, but I some- 
times think that marriage is not undertaken lightly 
and unadvisedly enough. It seems to me that now-a- 
days the tendency is to consider the matter almost too 
seriously, and that a certain light-hearted courage is 
really what is required before taking what is called 
the plunge.” 


PETER AND JANE 


115 


Miss Abingdon — not by any means for the first 
time — felt regret that Canon Wrottesley’s influence 
upon his wife had not made her a more orthodox 
thinker. A person who criticised the prayer book 
was surely not fitted to be the wife of a clergyman; 
Miss Abingdon liked “ to lean ” on a clergyman, and 
she thought that was the graceful and becoming atti- 
tude for all women. 

“ I am afraid we must not tamper with the prayer 
book,” she said reprovingly, and Mrs. Wrottesley, 
who for twenty years had been silent under reproof, 
relapsed into silence again. 

Jane, meanwhile, was saying good-bye to every ten- 
ant on Miss Abingdon’s small estate. To her hunters 
she confided the happy news that they were going 
with her when she married, and that they would hunt 
together as before. And the stable cat whom she 
took up in her arms and kissed affectionately was told 
that he really must not mind saying good-bye, for 
that she, Jane, would only be two miles off, so that 
the stable cat needn’t look quite so disconsolate. And 
then an old nurse in the village had to be visited, and 
the school children to be asked to tea, and tenants 
and gardeners to dinner ; and everything was in a de- 
lightful state of preparation, and everyone in a still 
more delightful state of preparation. 

Miss Abingdon enjoyed the dear fussiness of the 
wedding preparations, and thought in her secret heart 
that Mrs. Ogilvie missed all the pleasure of the thing 
by giving a few brief emphatic orders to her steward, 


116 


PETER AND JANE 


instead of personally superintending every detail of 
servants’ ball and tenants’ dinner. 

Mrs. Ogilvie’s directions were probably made in 
less than an hour and transmitted to Mr. Miller’s 
capacious pocket-book when he came to her boudoir 
to receive instructions one Autumn morning. When 
he had left, Mrs. Ogilvie quitted her writing table by 
which she had been sitting and walked to the window 
of her room and stood idly by it, her graceful figure 
in one of her usual beautiful gowns outlined against 
the pane. Before her stretched the great gardens in 
an aching formality of borders and devices. Viewed 
from a height, and with her near-sighted eyes they 
presented an appearance of a piece of elaborate stitch- 
work on a green worsted ground. The fountains 
with their punctual fall of spray might have been a 
device in shells and beads in the centre of each design. 
Beyond the gardens there was a mass of woods all 
dim greens and bright golds ; but even the woods were 
touched with formality, and the foresters of the place 
had lopped away every unsightly branch from the 
beeches and oaks. Probably there may have been 
homely corners in the gardens and grounds which 
Peter had discovered as a child; but Mrs. Ogilvie 
when she walked kept to the prim paths of the terrace 
and the garden where every pebble seemed to have its 
proper place in full view of the lines of windows of 
the house. 

“ It has always been a prison to me — always,” 


PETER AND JANE 


117 


she murmured to herself, oblivious of the fact that 
no one would have missed more than she a luxurious 
environment and a stately setting to her own per- 
sonality. Mrs. Ogilvie often imagined that she would 
have liked a small house; but she would probably 
have quitted it in disgust the first time that an odour 
of dinner came up the back stairs. She believed that 
a large staff of servants was a bore, but she would 
have felt at a loss had she been obliged to wait even 
for an hour upon herself. And she looked now on 
to the gardens in front of her and the woods beyond 
and the great stretches of greenhouses and conserva- 
tories to southward, and thought how irksome they 
all were. She supposed the tenants and servants 
would have to be fed on the occasion of a marriage — 
it was their one idea of enjoying themselves — but 
she had begged her steward not to bother her with 
details when he had gone into the question of roasting 
an ox whole. 

. . . “ I suppose,” she said to herself, “ that I 

may as well get over the disagreeable and odious 
things in one morning.” 

She went back to her writing table and sat down 
opposite a mirror which hung upon the wall. Ac- 
cording to a custom she had she directed the envelope 
first before beginning to write her letter — her writ- 
ing table was always littered with addressed envelopes 
of notes which she meant to write some day when she 
felt in the mood for writing. 


118 


PETER AND JANE 


She paused now when she had written the words, 
“ To be given to my son at my death,” and screwing 
up her face into her twisted smile she said to herself, 
“ How absurd and melodramatic it sounds 1 ” Then 
she took a sheet of note paper out of the note case 
beside her and began to write. The first few lines 
flowed easily enough, and then Mrs. Ogilvie’s pen 
traced the letters more slowly on the page. Once she 
paused altogether, and said aloud to her image in 
the mirror opposite her escritoire, “ What a fool I 
am ! ” and then stooped again over her task. The 
sprawling writing had hardly covered a half sheet of 
note paper when the red-gold head with its crown of 
plaits was raised again, and the woman in the mirror 
looked at her with a face that was suddenly livid. 
Her lips were white and were drawn back somewhat 
from her teeth, and Mrs. Ogilvie in the midst of pain, 
recognised first of all how hideous she looked. 

The pen dropped from her fingers and she pushed 
her chair back from the writing table, and went over 
to the fireplace and lay down on the sofa. The day 
was cold, and Mrs. Ogilvie shivered and drew a cover 
over her feet. “ When this is over,” she thought, “ I 
will ring and have the fire lighted.” 

She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and cal- 
culated deliberately how long the paroxysm would 
probably last. She had always regarded pain as an 
animate thing which had to be fought with, and she 
had never failed in courage when she had met it, nor 
moaned, when as now for the first time she was beaten 


PETER AND JANE 


119 


by it. The clock seemed to tick more leisurely to-day 
and the time passed very slowly ; there is a loneliness 
about suffering which makes the hours drag heavily. 
Once she buried her face for a moment in the sofa 
cushions, her head dropped helplessly and her hand 
clenched the satin of the cover in a grip of steel. But 
afterwards when she lay quite still there was a look 
of defiance in her attitude. 

Her maid coming in with hot water to the bedroom 
next door, glanced into the boudoir for a minute, and 
then crept out again, for she knew her mistress slept 
lightly, and she loved her with a pathetic loyalty such 
as her dependents seemed to feel for this woman 
whose rule was often of an unsparing order. She 
glanced at the blinds and wondered if she dared lower 
them, for the sun was shining brightly into the room 
just now, and its beams were resting bright and 
strong upon the figure on the sofa. 

It was something about the position of the auburn 
head — something twisted and unnatural in the atti- 
tude of the recumbent form that caused the woman 
to cry out suddenly and sharply with a vibrating cry 
that seemed to set everything in the room jingling. 
No one heard her at first, and she opened the window 
and called aloud for help, for there was a sound of 
horses’ hoofs upon the gravel and Peter rode up with 
Jane to the door. 

“ Mrs. Ogilvie must have been dead an hour,” the 
village doctor said when he came, and then he sent 
the weeping girl, and poor white-faced, broken- 


120 


PETER AND JANE 


hearted Peter out of the room. Neither of them 
could believe the horrible news — they clung to each 
other, taking hands as children do in their grief, and 
Jane turned back at the door of the morning-room 
and with a great sob returned to the couch and stoop- 
ing down imprinted a long fond kiss on the dead 
woman’s brow. 

“ She must have died just as she was writing her 
morning letters,” said Peter in a choking voice, as he 
glanced at the writing table with its litter of notes 
and papers, and he led Jane away from the room. 

“ Perhaps it would be as well to lock up anything 
that is lying about,” said the doctor ; “ it is custo- 
mary to do so. Or your lawyer — whom I under- 
stand is in the house — could come in, I suppose, and 
put away jewels, et cetera.” 

He handed to Peter the litter of notes and papers 
on the writing table. 

“ Thank you,” said Peter, “ I don’t suppose there’s 
anything very important, but I will look through 
them presently.” He glanced at the topmost ad- 
dresses of the pile, and decided that they were prob- 
ably belated wedding invitations for people who had 
been forgotten, and he put an elastic band about 
them and thrust them into his pocket. 

The guests in the house departed hurriedly within 
two hours of Mrs. Ogilvie’s death. There was all 
the confusion of hasty packing, and carriages ordered 
for this train and for that, and footmen hastening 
downstairs with luggage, and luncheon prepared hur- 


PETER AND JANE 


121 


riedly and eaten almost surreptitiously by those who 
wished to catch an early train. There was a horrible 
stir in the house under the hush and awe that death 
brings. No one wished to intrude upon Peter, yet a 
dozen friends wanted to see him, to hear if possible 
more details of his mother’s awfully sudden death. 
Others, with a sort of animal instinct of forsaking at 
once the place where death reigned betrayed an al- 
most contemptible haste in quitting the house. But 
they, too, must know further details. They had 
never noticed that she did not seem well ; or they had 
remarked that of late Mrs. Ogilvie had spent much 
time in her room ; or, “ she had seemed so bright and 
cheerful,” and again they had noticed how tired she 
had been at night. 

To no one had Peter any special news to give. 
Someone had heard he believed that she had been to 
see Sir Edward Croft, the great surgeon in London, 
and they telegraphed for him to come. But Peter 
himself had not really been anxious about his mother, 
although he had imagined for some time past that 
she had not looked well. He gave what attention 
he could to his guests, bade them a conventional 
good-bye, and maintained that reserve which an Eng- 
lishman is supposed to be able to maintain in times 
of sorrow. But it is not too much to say that, the 
warm-hearted deeply affectionate man that he was, 
his grief for his mother’s death rendered him nearly 
stupid. He had loved her faithfully and admired 
her loyally during the whole of his life; there had 




PETER AND JANE 


never been a cloud between them, and if he had not 
received many outward marks of affection from the 
poor dead woman upstairs there was not a single 
occasion in his life that he could remember when 
she had failed him. He had come first always ; he 
realised this with the sinking of heart which even 
the most dutiful of sons may feel when he sees with 
absolute clearness, perhaps for the first time, that 
he must have accepted almost unknowingly many 
sacrifices from his mother. He hoped with a sort of 
boyish remorse and a boyish simple-heartedness that 
she understood everything now, and that somewhere 
not very far off, she would be able to see into his 
heart and to know positively how much he had loved 
her. He had always accepted in simple faithfulness 
the statement that those who were gone “ knew now,” 
as the phrase runs, and it comforted him to think 
that all he might have said to her when she was alive 
was clearly understood by his mother at last. 

By two o’clock the big house was empty of guests 
and given over to silence, or the sound of hushed 
footsteps about the stairs, or to the weeping of 
maids as they assembled in little groups in the cor- 
ridors and spoke with sobs of the dear mistress who 
was gone. Each room that had lately given up its 
tenant showed a disordered interior with paper strewn 
here and there. Or some maid left behind to pack 
her mistress’s heavier luggage could be seen kneeling 
before open trunks and deftly arranging their con- 
tents. 


PETER AND JANE 


128 


A grey-haired butler approached his master when 
the last of the carriages had driven away and begged 
him to eat some luncheon, and informed him that Miss 
Erskine was still in the library. 

“ Send something there,” said Peter briefly. 

For a moment Jane could only weep, and they 
clung to each other, saying with the helplessness of 
the sudden bereaved, 44 Isn’t it awful? ” Then as they 
began to grow calmer, Peter administered what com- 
fort he could, and tried in his kindly way to induce 
the girl to eat something. 

44 You must eat, you know,” he said, 44 and it will 
do you good; it has been a terrible time for you. 
And then I think you ought to go back and see Miss 
Abingdon, and lie down for a bit.” 

If it is true that a woman suggests beef-tea as 
a universal panacea for all ills it is certain on the 
other hand that a man believes that a woman always 
feels better for lying down. 

44 1 should like to wait,” Jane said, 44 till Sir Ed- 
ward arrives and we hear what he has to say.” 

A footman came in to clear away lunch and then 
the two lovers went and sat together on the library 
sofa, and looked out on the dull stretches of gardens 
with their air of cold precision and want of sym- 
pathy. A luggage cart piled high with dress-baskets 
and portmanteaux drove down the drive towards the 
station gates, and someone’s motor-car returned from 
a neighbouring house for something that had been 


1U 


PETER AND JANE 


forgotten. After that there was silence throughout 
the house ; even the maids had gone downstairs to 
sit together and whisper about the recent events. It 
was one of those still grey days in early Autumn 
which have an almost weird sense of silence about 
them. Hardly a leaf stirred, and even the flight of 
the birds was noiseless and touched with the universal 
feeling of stillness. The begonias and dahlias and 
flaming Autumn flowers in the broad border below 
the southern terrace wall had lost half their colour 
in the grey afternoon, and a robin alighted softly 
on the window sill, and putting its head on one side 
looked into the library at the two sitting on the 
sofa. 

Neither had spoken for a time; to-morrow there 
would probably be lawyers to see and the funeral 
to arrange for, and a hundred things to do. But to- 
day there was a lull in which time itself seemed to 
have stood still. Years had passed since this morn- 
ing, and yet the clocks only marked a few hours on 
their dials. Mrs. Ogilvie had died at twelve o’clock, 
and the very flowers which she had placed by her 
table still bloomed freshly, and a book she had been 
reading lay open where she had left it ; yet it seemed 
a life time since she had passed away. During the in- 
terminable afternoon and in the stillness of the big 
library, with its ordered rows of books and solemn- 
looking carved cupboards, Peter and Jane Erskine 
sat together feeling oppressively this great lapse of 
time that had passed. To each it seemed that they 


PETER AND JANE 


125 

were like two people long married who sat together 
thus. Their understanding of one another had al- 
ways been a strong bond between them; and now 
they felt not like the two lovers of yesterday but 
like those whose lives have been linked for years, and 
for whom loyalty and faith and love have grown 
deeper and stronger as troubles and storms came. 
They looked across the library to the ruined tower, 
where not many weeks ago as we count time, they 
had told their love to each other ; and so looking and 
drawn closer each to each by their common sorrow, 
it seemed to them in the silence of the library that 
this time of grief and dependence was their real wed- 
ding day. 

The doctor and the lawyer summoned Peter pres- 
ently, and afterwards he and Jane were told gently 
of what they knew. “ But she must have suffered ; 
she must have suffered so!” said Jane with all the 
resentfulness that youth feels towards pain. “Why 
did she tell none of us? Why did none of us know? ” 

“ I ought to have guessed something,” said Peter 
miserably; “ I must have been a fool not to see that 
something was wrong.” And together they wondered 
what would have happened if this had been done, or 
that, and were inclined to reproach themselves for 
that for which they were in no measure to blame. 
They walked home through the dim still woods in their 
unearthly beauty of Autumn, and at the white gates 
of Jane’s pleasant home Peter turned back and she 
went on alone to meet Miss Abingdon. 


126 


PETER AND JANE 


It was late that night before the two sorrowful 
women went to bed, and hardly was breakfast over 
in the morning before, with the restlessness born of 
recent grief, Miss Abingdon was seeking distractedly 
to know what she could do or what ought to be done. 

“ If,” she said, “ I felt that I could even be of 
use by going up to town and choosing the servants’ 
mourning I should feel that I was doing something.” 

She wrote a number of notes apprising neighbours 
of the news of Mrs. Ogilvie’s death, accompanied by 
such details of the illness as she had obtained, and 
then she tried to distract Jane from her grief by the 
consolation of choosing mourning. There were piles 
of patterns of black stuffs which Miss Abingdon had 
telegraphed for on the previous evening, lying in 
neat bundles on the breakfast table and stamped with 
their several prices and the width of the materials. 
Such things have often kept a woman sane in the 
first despair of grief. If Miss Abingdon could only 
decide whether Jane ought to wear crepe or not, it 
would have been, she felt, a great comfort to her. 
In a week or two Mrs. Ogilvie would have been Jane’s 
mother-in-law, but no tie of relationship had been 
actually established between them, and the perplexity 
which Miss Abingdon felt helped to relieve the pres- 
sure of her grief. 

“ How would it do ? ” she said, “ to have a little 
on the bodice and not on the skirt? ” 

Jane replied that she thought that would do very 
nicely. 


PETER AND JANE 


w 

Poor Jane! Her eyes were big with weeping and 
she had lain awake the greater part of the night 
mourning for her dearest friend who was gone. Now 
as she tried to give her attention to her aunt and 
to the vexed question of the propriety of crepe on the 
bodice, she thought with girlish ingenuousness that 
she wanted Peter more than she had ever wanted him 
before, and that she could do nothing until she had 
seen him. And across her grief came one great flash 
of joy as she realised that in all her troubles and sor- 
rows she would have him with her. 

64 There he is now,” said Miss Abingdon, 44 coming 
up the drive. Jane, my dear, how awfully ill Peter 
looks. Oh, my dear, you should have told me how ill 
he looks!” 

Jane went out to the hall door without speaking. 
44 What is wrong P ” she said briefly. 44 Come into my 
sitting-room, Peter, and tell me what is wrong.” 

44 I’d rather be outside if you don’t mind,” said 
Peter — the primitive man strong in him again. 

There had been a storm in the night after the 
unusual stillness of the afternoon accompanied by 
heavy rain. Now the sun shone fitfully and the dis- 
ordered gardens and lawns were strewn with branches 
and countless leaves which chased each other, bowling 
along on their edges, and dancing in mad eddies and 
circles. 

44 Let’s get out of sight of the house,” said Peter, 
and they went into the high-walled garden and sat 
down on one of Miss Abingdon’s cheerful-looking 


128 


PETER AND JANE 


white seats. There were long borders of dripping 
storm-dashed flowers in front of them, and mignonette 
run to seed, and dahlias filled with moisture to their 
brims. Some gardeners were busy tying up saplings 
which had been detached from their stakes, and the 
beech trees on the other side of the high walls of the 
garden tossed their branches together and sighed a 
little. 

Peter waited for a minute or two until the garden- 
ers had moved out of hearing, and then said abruptly 
and with difficulty — “ You know those papers that 
the doctor gave me yesterday? ” 

66 Those notes and things which were on her writ- 
ting table? 99 Jane asked. 

Peter nodded his head and then with an effort 
began again — this time with an attempt at formality 
— “ I’m sorry to have to tell you that there is some- 
thing in one of them that I shall have to speak to 
you about.” 

“ Something in one of your mother’s notes ? ” 
asked Jane, her level eyes turned questioningly upon 
him. 

“ I’m telling it all wrong,” said Peter distractedly, 
“ and making it worse for you.” 

“ Are you quite sure that you need tell me any- 
thing at all? ” asked Jane, and she laid her hand in 
his. 

“ I am quite sure,” he said, and then a very sur- 
prising thing happened, for he put Jane’s hand aside 
and stood up before her. 


PETER AND JANE 


129 


“ I’m not even going to take your hand,” he said, 
“ until I have told you all about it. . . . You 

see, there was a letter addressed to me amongst those 
on her writing table yesterday. I’ve shown it to the 
lawyer, but neither he nor I can make anything of 
it. It is directed to me to be given to me at her 
death, but she must have died while she was writing 
it. It leaves off in the middle of a sentence.” 

“ I think,” said Jane slowly, “ that nothing mat- 
ters in the whole world as long as we have each 
other.” 

“ Ah, my dear,” said Peter, and he sat down on the 
bench and took her hand again. 

“ I’ll show you the letter,” he said suddenly, 
and brought the sheet of note paper out of his 
pocket. 

“May I read it?” said Jane. 

“ Yes, if you will,” he replied. 

Afterwards they could tell every word of the un- 
finished letter by heart, but at the first reading the 
words seemed merely to puzzle Jane Erskine and con- 
veyed very little sense to her. 

“ When you get this letter I shall be dead,” wrote 
the woman who had meant to live for many years, 
“ and before I die I think there is something which 
I had better tell you — I am not haunted by remorse 
nor indulging in a deathbed repentance, and I shall 
merely ask you not to hate me more than you can 
help when you have finished reading this letter. You 
must often have heard of your elder brother who died 


130 


PETER AND JANE 


when I was in Spain the year after your father’s 
death. He did not die — ” 

. . . “ There must be something more,” said 

'Jane; she turned the page this way and that as 
though to read some writing not decipherable by other 
eyes. 

“ I’ve looked everywhere,” said Peter ; <fi there’s 
nothing more ; besides, you see she stops in the middle 
of a sheet of note-paper — Why should she have 
written anything else on another piece?” 

They read the letter again together; scanning the 
words line by line. 

“ What can it mean ? ” she said at last. 

" I have evidently got an elder brother,” said Peter 
briefly, “ to whom everything belongs. Most people 
remember that my mother took a curious antipathy 
to the other little chap when I was born. I can’t 
make it out in any possible way — no one can, of 
course. But it seems pretty plain that no will can 
be proved nor can I touch anything until my brother 
is known to be either dead or alive.” 

“ What can we do? ” said Jane. Their two hands 
were still locked together, and the trouble was the 
trouble of both. 

“ I can go out to Spain, where he is supposed to 
have died,” said Peter, 46 and make enquiries.” 

64 1 want to ask you something,” said Jane after 
a pause. “ Let’s get married quietly first of all and 
then we can do everything together.” 

“ I’m probably a pauper,” he said simply, “ with- 


PETER AND JANE 


131 


out the right to a single stone of Bowshott. I went 
fully into my father’s will with the lawyer last night, 
and he leaves nearly everything to the eldest son.” 

“ Dear Peter ! ” said Jane protestingly ; and she 
smiled a little. 

They talked on far into the morning, at one time 
half distrusting the evidence of their eyes which read 
the letter; at another looking far into the future to 
try and pierce the veil of darkness that at present 
shrouded it. Then, for there were many things to 
do, the young man turned his face homeward again, 
and Jane sat on alone in the garden, looking with 
eyes that hardly were conscious of seeing what they 
rested on, while the wet branches of the beech trees 
lashed themselves together, and the tearful Autumn 
sunshine flickered on the disordered beds of the mig- 
nonette. She sat there until the stable clock struck 
one, then rose and went indoors. One important de- 
cision had been made. They would be married 
quietly on the day Mrs. Ogilvie had fixed for the wed- 
ding ; and then together they would seek the brother 
who, if he was still alive, would be brother to them 
both. 

But the Court of Chancery took that reasonable 
view of the case, which as it frequently happens is 
directly opposed to the view sentimental. The Court 
of Chancery in fact refused to sanction the marriage 
of a minor with a man without settled prospects, 
and one whose position in the world was not con- 
firmed by the possession either of money or of lands. 


132 


PETER AND JANE 


At the age of twenty-five Miss Erskine might do as 
she liked; until then the Court of Chancery decided 
that she should divide her time each year between 
her two guardians, with whom she had always lived. 
No protests were of any avail, and relations and 
friends were agreed in thinking that it was better to 
postpone the marriage at least for a time. 

The Autumn passed miserably. Peter went to 
Juarez first of all, and proved what at first he had 
supposed might have been the disordered fancy of a 
sick woman to be substantially true ; there was no rec- 
ord of the death of Edward Ogilvie, nor did any entry 
in registers show the death of an English child in 
the year when he was supposed to have died. No 
little grave in the cemetery marked his resting place. 
One fact at least seemed established and that was that 
Peter’s elder brother had not died in infancy at 
Juarez. 

Not much more than this could be proved, and 
Peter returned home to find that for the present 
nothing was legally his. Pending enquiries Bow- 
shott was closed. Those who were in ignorance of the 
real state of affairs talked glibly of enormous death 
duties which had crippled for a time even the im- 
mense Ogilvie estates, and had rendered it necessary 
for Peter to shut up the house and live economically. 
The countryside, which called itself gay, met at 
many little parties, and talked charitably of the 
woman who was gone, saying with an unconscious 
sense of patronage, that they had always liked Mrs. 


PETER AND JANE 


133 


Ogilvie in spite of her faults. Death — the great 
leveller — had brought their unapproachable neigh- 
bour nearer to them; they were not afraid of her 
now. It was strange to think that she was really 
less than one of themselves in the cold isolation and 
the pathetic impotence of the grave. They could 
hardly picture her yet as a powerless thing, the keen 
narrowing eyes closed, the sharp-edged poignard of 
her speech forever sheathed. She was poor Mrs. 
Ogilvie now. 

Meanwhile, papers were being turned over, and 
every box and chest which contained writing matter 
was searched for a clue to the missing child. Peter 
was engaged in long consultations with detectives, 
and lawyers were running up goodly bills and consuls 
were making enquiries abroad. A whole train of en- 
quiries was set in motion, and pens and tongues were 
busy. The powerful hand of the law stretched out 
its long arm in secret to this country and to that, 
only to be met with a baffling sense of failure to hold 
or to discover anything. Money was spent lavishly, 
and great brains tried to solve the mystery ; and Mrs. 
Ogilvie lay in her grave in a silence that could not 
be broken, and her hand which had traced the few 
lines on one sheet of note-paper was cold and still for- 


ever. 


CHAPTER VIII 


When Peter came back from Spain he came back to 
an empty house. The big reception rooms at Bowshott 
were swathed in brown holland and dust sheets, pic- 
tures were covered and carpets were rolled up, giving 
an air of desolation to the place. The flowers in the 
garden had all been dug up, and the carefully tended 
designs — so like a stitchwork pattern — had lost 
their mosaic of colour, merely leaving a careful draw- 
ing of brown upon green. The banks of flowering 
exotics, which his mother had loved to have in her 
drawing-rooms, had been removed to the greenhouses 
and conservatories. The sight even of the gardeners 
mowing for the last time in the season the hundred- 
year-old turf of the lawn conveyed a suggestion of 
regret with it, and the old pony harnessed to the 
mowing machine stepped sedately and quietly in his 
boots on the close fine grass. Everything about Bow- 
shott looked stately and beautiful in the clean .sharp 
air of the morning, when Peter drove up to the door 
after a long night journey and ascended the flight 
of steps leading to the hall door. 

His return to this beautiful inheritance which had 
been indisputably his since he was a little boy had 
a horrible feeling of unreality about it. Half a 
dozen times in the course of the morning he had to 
check himself when he found his thoughts wandering 
134 


PETER AND JANE 


135 


to alterations or improvements, and to tell himself 
with a bewildered feeling that perhaps he had not 
a right to a flower in the garden, or a chair in the 
house. 

“ I can’t believe it’s not mine,” he said aloud, as 
he drove up the long avenue from the station in his 
dogcart with one of the Bowshott famous hackneys 
in the shafts. “ I can’t quite believe it’s not mine 1 ” 
Many people might have found in the singular un- 
homeliness of the big house a just cause for with- 
holding their affection from it, but Peter had always 
loved it. Every corner of the place was full of mem- 
ories to him. Here was the wall of the terrace off 
which as a little boy he used to jump, making horri- 
ble heel marks in the turf where he alighted; and 
there was the stone summerhouse, built after the 
fashion of a small Greek temple, but only interesting 
to Peter Ogilvie from the fact that he used to keep 
his wheelbarrow and tools there. He remembered 
the first day when it had suddenly struck him that 
the geometrically-shaped flower beds were designed 
after a pattern, and he had counted with his nurse 
the loops and circles in the design. There again 
were the fountains with their silver spray in whose 
basins, by the inexorable but utterly unintelligible 
law of the nursery he had never been allowed to play. 
There was the clock on the tower which used to boom 
out every hour as it passed, but of whose strokes 
he was never conscious except when he heard it at 
night. And here was the hall with its big round 


136 


PETER AND JANE 


tables by the fire, where they used to have tea, and 
beyond that the library and his mother’s drawing- 
room; and then in the older wings of the house, the 
ball-room where Charles I had banqueted, and the 
Sevres sitting-room, so called from the china plaques 
let into the mantelpiece where he had made love. 

“ I hope if my brother is alive he is a good sort of 
chap,” said Peter. 

He breakfasted in the tapestried room which he 
had ordered to be kept open for him, and then went 
into the library to write his letters. He had a hun- 
dred things to do. At lunch time he interviewed his 
steward, his agent, his stud groom, and the other 
heads of departments of a large estate. The horses 
were to be sold with the exception of a few favour- 
ites. The gardens were to be kept up as usual. 

Some favourite dogs of his mother’s would be 
cared for, his bankers would pay the usual subscrip- 
tions to local charities, and the almshouses in the 
village were to be maintained as they had always been 
maintained. 

After lunch Mr. Semple, the lawyer, arrived. He 
was a pleasant man and a great botanist. The gar- 
dens at Bowshott were a delight to him, and Peter 
had often found him good company over a cigar in 
the evenings. Mr. Semple had been one of those who 
had throughout urged secrecy and caution in the 
matter of the late Mrs. Ogilvie’s communication. 
“ In the first place,” he said, “ it may still be proved 
to be an hallucination of her mind, attendant upon her 


PETER AND JANE 


137 


state of health. And in the second place anything 
like making the matter public might bring a host of 
aspirants and adventurers about, whose claims would 
take months of investigation to dispose of.” He ad- 
vised that everything about the house should remain 
in its present state for a year, until a proper legal 
enquiry and search could be instituted into the dis- 
appearance of the elder son. 

“ He may have died as a child, although he wasn’t 
buried at Juarez,” said Peter. 

Jane had departed to spend her usual six months 
of the year with Colonel Erskine and his family, but 
she had written to say positively that she knew it 
would come all right, and whenever Peter was down- 
hearted he always thought of her letter, believing in 
all simplicity that Jane was always right. If only 
she were at Miss Abingdon’s now, instead of in her 
uncle’s big house in Grosvenor Place ! 

“ She’ll miss the hunting, I’m afraid,” he thought 
miserably, contrasting their present separation with 
all the joy and happiness that they had so fully in- 
tended should be theirs this winter. 

Mr. Semple had a shrewdness which had been ac- 
quired from many years’ experience in legal matters, 
and he had shaken his head when Peter made the 
suggestion that probably his brother had died in in- 
fancy. “ The conclusion I have arrived at after 
years of legal work,” he said, “ is that the unde- 
sirable person lives, while the useful or much wanted 
one dies. Those who encumber the ground remain 


138 


PETER AND JANE 


longest upon it, and the person in receipt of a large 
annuity or pension is proverbially long-lived. How- 
ever, we have so far not found a single trace of the 
existence of Edward Ogilvie, though you must re- 
member we have not yet ascertained in what different 
parts of Spain your mother lived during those two 
years which she spent there.” 

“ I don’t see who on earth is ever to tell us ! ” 
ejaculated Peter. “ She generally had foreign maids 
about her, and I think that I always had French 
nurses. I never heard of any old servant who went 
with her on her travels, and although, of course, 
money was paid to her by the bank and letters were 
forwarded to her by the bankers, the actual ad- 
dresses have not been kept after an interval of 
twenty-five years. One of the old clerks at Coutts’ 
remembers in an indefinite sort of way that he for- 
warded packages for a long time to Madrid, and 
afterwards he thinks to Toledo, and then further 
south, and at one time to Cintra; but her head- 
quarters seem always to have been in Granada, 
and this old chap whom I was talking to says that 
he can give me no dates, nor, indeed, any exact in- 
formation.” 

“ I did not know she had been at Cintra or Toledo,” 
said Mr. Semple thoughtfully. 

“ I won’t swear that she had,” said Peter. “ The 
Peninsula wasn’t so generally known twenty-five 
years ago as it is now. Travelling was difficult then, 
and people in England who have not themselves trav- 


PETER AND JANE 


139 


elled much are very liable to get confused about the 
names of foreign places.” 

“ Still,” said the lawyer, “ Cintra and Toledo are 
places that everyone knows.” 

“ You mean,” said Peter, “ that in a well-known 
place with English people living in it there would 
be more likelihood of getting the information which 
we want? ” 

“ I mean,” said Mr. Semple, “ that as there is no 
evidence of your brother ever having been seen at 
Juarez, the next thing is to find out in what place there 
is evidence of his having been seen.” 

It was late afternoon, and as all clerical work for 
the day was now finished, Peter suggested and Mr. 
Semple readily agreed to a walk in the gardens. 
There was nothing left in the flower beds, but the con- 
servatories and the orchid house were a real feast of 
pleasure to the lawyer. He went into the outer hall 
to get his stick and coat, and then turning back to- 
wards his host, he made a humorous signal to convey 
the intelligence that some callers had driven up to 
the door. Peter retreated precipitately, but Mr. Sem- 
ple had already been seen and was hailed by Mr. 
Lawrence, who had a few minutes before drawn up to 
the entrance in his big red motor-car. Already Mr. 
Lawrence was in earnest conversation with the butler, 
and his feminine-like ejaculations could be heard 
now as he stood and conversed with the man at the 
hall door. 

“ How sad ! ” he was saying, “ and no one had any 


140 


PETER AND JANE 


idea how ill she was ! Dear, dear ! Captain Ogilvie 
not seeing anyone — terribly cut up, I have no 
doubt — ” 

He stood on the doorstep while his guests in the 
motor, who seemed to fear that they might be intru- 
sive, looked as though they would prefer to hasten 
their departure. 

“ Ah, how do you do, Mr. Semple,” said Mr. Law- 
rence in his high-pitched voice, advancing a few steps 
into the hall. “ This is a great piece of luck meet- 
ing you like this ! I have just driven over with my 
friends, Sir John and Lady Falconer. Lady Fal- 
coner, may I introduce my friend Mr. Semple? This 
is a very sad house to come to, Mr. Semple, is it not? ” 
he said, and paused, hoping for a little gossip from 
the lawyer. “ I was just driving through the village 
and I have been to see the church with my friends 
and we thought we would run in and enquire how 
everything was going on.” 

“ Everything,” said the lawyer drily, “ is going on 
as well as could be expected.” 

“ How is Peter? ” said Mr. Lawrence, putting on 
an appropriate expression of woe, which sat oddly 
on his big, healthy, red face. He was really a kindly 
man at heart, but an idle existence and his inveterate 
love of gossip had made a poor creature of him. 
His healthy muscular frame did not know the sensa- 
tion of honest fatigue which follows a good day’s 
work, and his mind travelled on lines of so little re- 


PETER AND JANE 


141 


sistance that he may be said to have exercised it almost 
as infrequently as he exercised his body. 

Mr. Semple replied that Peter seemed well; and 
Mr. Lawrence taking him in an affectionate and fa- 
miliar manner by the sleeve of his coat, drew him 
towards him and said, “ I should so much like my 
friends to see the gardens. Peter would not mind, 
would he ? ” 

Lady Falconer, the least intrusive of women, who 
had heard the whispered colloquy, here interposed and 
said that as she was very cold, she would much prefer 
going home; and Sir John added with simple direct- 
ness that he thought that as the place was more or 
less shut up at present, the gardens had better wait 
for a more fitting occasion. 

Mr. Lawrence protested that a walk would do Lady 
Falconer good, and that further as they were leaving 
so soon, there would not be any chance of seeing the 
famous gardens. In fact, Mr. Lawrence had the 
door of his motor-car open, and was helping Lady 
Falconer to alight almost before he had obtained Mr. 
Semple’s permission to make a tour of the gardens. 

“ It’s all right,” he said in his fussy dictatorial 
way, divesting himself of his heavy motor-coat, and 
preparing to act as cicerone. “ This place is thrown 
open once a week to the public, and although this 
isn’t a visitor’s day, all sorts of people come to visit 
Bowshott on the other days of the week.” 

Lady Falconer felt slightly ruffled by the way in 


142 


PETER AND JANE 


which her wishes had been ignored in a small matter, 
and confined herself to talking to the lawyer; but 
Mr. Lawrence overtook them on the pretext of point- 
ing out some special beauty of the design of the 
gardens, or of the fine view that could be obtained 
from the high position of the terraces, and the next 
moment he had plunged somewhat ruthlessly into the 
absorbing topic of Mrs. Ogilvie’s sudden death. 

“We were all shocked by it,” he said emphasising 
his words in his gushing way ; “ and of course to our 
little circle,” he said, turning to Mr. Semple in an 
explanatory manner, “ it is more particularly painful 
and distressing because Sir John and Lady Falconer 
had only just renewed a very old acquaintance with 
the deceased lady.” 

“We knew Mrs. Ogilvie very well in Spain,” said 
Lady Falconer in her charming voice, still confining 
her remarks to Mr. Semple. 

“ Ah ! ” said the lawyer, “ you knew her in Spain? ” 

“ Yes,” said Lady Falconer, “ and it was one of 
those friendships which I believe it was intended 
on both sides should be renewed when we should re- 
turn to England; for on my own and on my hus- 
band’s part, at least, it was a matter of real liking. 
But we have been on foreign service ever since we 
were married, and I never met Mrs. Ogilvie again till 
she drove to the races at Sedgewick.” 

Mr. Semple detached himself and his companion 
from the little group which Mr. Lawrence was show- 
ing round with so much assiduity, and as they paced 


PETER AND JANE 


143 


the broad walks of the terrace together, he said to 
her with an air of frank confidence, “ You were with 
her, perhaps, before her elder child died? ” 

66 No,” said Lady Falconer, “ and rather strangely 
I never knew till the other day that Mrs. Ogilvie had 
lost a child. There was only one boy with her when 
we knew her at Juarez, and although she was in deep 
mourning at the time we knew, of course, that she was 
in the first year of her widowhood, but we had no idea, 
as I was telling Mrs. Wrottesley the other day, that 
Mrs. Ogilvie had suffered a double loss.” 

Mr. Semple led the way through the orchid house 
and stopped to examine some of the blooms with ab- 
sorbed attention. “ It is very chilly,” he said, as he 
stepped out into the cold air after that of the hot 
greenhouse ; “ I hope you will not take cold.” He 
locked his hands lightly behind his back as he walked 
and continued to talk to the companion by his side. 
“ I wonder,” he said, 66 if you could tell me exactly 
the year and the month when you first met Mrs. 
Ogilvie? There are various formalities to be gone 
through in connexion with Captain Ogilvie’s acces- 
sion to the property which necessitate hunting up 
family records (and these have been very badly kept 
in the Ogilvie family). Also — may I say this to 
you in confidence? There was an idea in many peo- 
ple’s minds that about the time of Colonel Ogilvie’s 
death and the early infancy of the second son, Peter, 
Mrs. Ogilvie’s mind was slightly unhinged for a time. 
It may not have been so, but one cannot help wonder- 


144 


PETER AND JANE 


ing if the concealment which she has used to keep 
from her family the knowledge of the existence of 
this disease from which she has died may not 
have been something like a return of an old mental 
malady.” 

Lady Falconer looked genuinely distressed, and 
protested that certainly when she knew Mrs. Ogilvie 
she was in all respects the most sane as well as one of 
the most charming of women. 44 And as for giving 
you dates,” she said pleasantly, 44 that is very easily 
done, for it was in the year and the month of my 
marriage that I first met her.” 

44 That would be — ? ” said Mr. Semple, unlocking 
his clasped hands and touching his fingers together 
in the characteristic manner of the confidential law- 
yer. 

44 That was in December, 1881,” she said. 

44 Ah ! ” said Mr. Semple contemplatively, 44 then it 
must have been after little Edward Ogilvie 5 s death, of 
course.” 

44 I cannot tell you how long after it was,” said 
Lady Falconer, 44 because as I say, Mrs. Ogilvie never 
spoke of her loss. Perhaps that does not seem to 
you very remarkable as we only met her in a most 
casual manner in an out-of-the-way village in Spain; 
but we really were on terms of some intimacy to- 
gether, and one can only explain her silence by the 
fact which seems to be pretty generally known that 
she was a woman of quite unusual reserve.” 


PETER AND JANE 


145 


Yes,” said Mr. Semple, “ I believe no one ever 
knew Mrs. Ogilvie very well.” 

Mr. Lawrence called to them from behind to sug- 
gest that the new row of greenhouses was an immense 
improvement, and that they had cost over a thousand 
pounds to build. 

Lady Falconer politely turned to look back, and 
then found herself rather determinedly appropriated 
by the lawyer. 

“ I always understood,” he said, “ that Mrs. Ogilvie 
travelled considerably in Spain, and, of course, in 
those days when railways were fewer this was con- 
sidered rather unusual, especially for a lady trav- 
elling with no gentleman with her. How courageous 
she was ! ” 

“ Much more courageous than I was even with my 
husband with me ! ” said Lady Falconer. “ Mrs. Og- 
ilvie had been in quite out-of-the-way parts of the 
country, but she spoke the language perfectly, and 
I believe I used to hear that she had Spanish blood 
in her veins.” 

“ I remember hearing that she had been at Se- 
ville and at Granada, where she had property, and 
then beyond where the railway now extends to 
some of the more southern provinces,” hazarded Mr. 
Semple. 

“ I think if I remember right,” said Lady Falconer, 
“ that when we met her she had not been quite so far. 
I recollect that she had just returned from Cintra 


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PETER AND JANE 


when we met her, but no doubt she continued her 
travels farther at a later date.” 

“ I have always heard that Cintra is a most lovely 
place,” said Mr. Semple, “ and Mrs. Ogilvie always 
had a peculiar love for beautiful things.” 

“ Cintra is beautiful, and Lisbon itself is a par- 
ticularly fine town,” assented Lady Falconer. 

“ Mrs. Ogilvie then was not there when you knew 
her? ” 

Lawyers are inquisitive by profession, or Mr. 
Semple may have made his enquiries with much tact; 
be that as it may, his manner was so kind and pleas- 
ant and betrayed so much real feeling for his clients, 
that Lady Falconer was tempted to continue the sub- 
ject of conversation in which he seemed so deeply in- 
terested. 

“ I wish,” she said cordially, “ that I could remem- 
ber more details that might be of interest or of use to 
you. My husband and I have spent a most varied 
life, in which many interesting experiences have 
necessarily been forgotten, but we were both consid- 
erably impressed by Mrs. Ogilvie’s vivid personality, 
and her very real charm — these have made much 
more impression on me than anything that she may 
have told us about her journeys. She was fond of 
travelling by sea, I remember, and I perfectly well 
recollect her telling my husband and me that she 
had come by ship to Lisbon when she first came to 
travel in Spain for her health.” 

“ Yes, I remember hearing that,” said Mr. Semple. 


PETER AND JANE 


147 


66 Indeed, I believe that we took her passage for her, 
and in going over her papers the other day we came 
across two letters which she had written home from 
the ship.” 

“ Talking of that,” said Lady Falconer, “ I wonder 
if the maid who was with her during the time I was 
there could not be of more service to you than any- 
one else? I often think a maid must know her mis- 
tress with even a greater degree of intimacy than 
many of her friends, and I remember it was a par- 
ticularly nice Spanish woman whose services she lent 
me when I was ill.” 

Mr. Semple would like to know if Lady Falconer 
remembered whether the woman had come out from 
England with Mrs. Ogilvie. 

“I am afraid I cannot,” said Lady Falconer — 
“ But stop ! Yes, I can ! The maid who came out 
from England with Mrs. Ogilvie left her because she 
objected to the sea voyage. It seems that the poor 
thing was so ill that she never appeared the whole 
time, and as soon as the ship touched port she went 
straight back to England by land. I remember that 
quite well now, because that was a particularly stormy 
winter with dreadful gales, and when my illness was 
at its worst it was another very stormy night; and 
this Spanish woman whom I mentioned just now told 
me the story and was evidently full of sympathy for 
the English maid! She enlivened the whole of her 
watch during the night by lamentations over the 
danger of sea voyages interspersed with prayers to 


148 


PETER AND JANE 


the Virgin. I shall never forget how it blew! The 
house shook with the violence of the gale, and this 
Spanish woman sat by my bed and told me stories of 
shipwreck and of bodies washed up on the beach. 
Mrs. Ogilvie had, I understood, been seeing some 
friends off to Argentina on one of the mail packet 
steamers, and at every gust of wind that blew this 
very emotional serving woman seemed determined to 
predict some horrible catastrophe to the travellers.” 

“ How little self-control some of these people 
have,” commented Mr. Semple. “ I always wonder 
how it is that ladies choose foreign women to be their 
personal attendants. I suppose you don’t happen to 
know if this maid remained long with Mrs. Ogilvie ? ” 

“ I do not, indeed,” said Lady Falconer, “ but I am 
under the impression that Mrs. Ogilvie changed her 
maids frequently. This will coincide with your view 
that she was in a nervous uncontrolled condition at 
the time, although in other respects I cannot honestly 
say that I ever noticed the least sign of an unhinged 
mind. One thought that she was too much alone, 
but of course her loss was a very recent one, and 
everyone knows that in grief there often comes a 
desire for solitude.” 

“ It was sad, therefore,” said Mr. Semple, “ that 
these friends of hers should go to Argentina just 
then. Mrs. Ogilvie would have been all the better 
for having a few intimates about her. It would be 
useful if you could remember their names.” 

“ I did not gather that they were great friends,” 


PETER AND JANE 


149 


said Lady Falconer, “ but, indeed, the incident made 
very little impression on my mind. Sometimes when 
one is ill such a perfectly unimportant conversation 
as I had with my nurse remains in one’s mind; but I 
imagine that no information, even if I were able to 
give it to you, about Mrs. Ogilvie’s friends could in 
any way help you to solve the sad question of her 
mental state at that time.” 

“ And these friends of hers of whom you speak 
could hardly do so either?” questioned the lawyer. 

“ Ah ! ” protested Lady Falconer, “ you are ac- 
cepting my vague recollections almost as if they were 
legal evidence ! Whereas, I really cannot tell you 
who these friends of hers were, nor anything about 
them. But the impression remains with me from 
some reference that the Spanish maid made about 
her mistress’s charity that it was some mother and 
child belonging to the humbler class of life whom 
our friend was assisting in her usual kind way, and 
whose passage to Argentina she may possibly have 
paid.” 

“ Mrs. Ogilvie was always kind,” assented the 
lawyer. They had made a longer detour in the gar- 
dens than Lady Falconer would have cared to take 
had she not been interested in the man by her side, 
whose inquisitiveness was based upon friendship, and 
whose most persistent interrogations had been touched 
with a quiet and gentlemanly tact which contrasted 
pleasantly with Mr. Lawrence’s dictatorial manner. 
That genial and rubicund person was now seen ap- 


150 


PETER AND JANE 


proaching with Sir John, and suggested that they 
ought to “ draw Peter for tea.” 

Lady Falconer declined the refreshment with con- 
siderable emphasis. This visit to the closed house 
so recently shadowed by death seemed to her in- 
trusive, and she would now have preferred to return 
home; but Peter had seen them from the house, and 
being the least churlish of men he came out on the 
terrace and invited the party to come in. He dis- 
liked Mr. Lawrence as much as it was in his kindly 
uncritical nature to dislike anyone, but it is more 
than possible that he would have resented a word said 
in his disfavour. “ Lawrence is a good fellow,” he 
used to say charitably, “ only he is so beastly domes- 
tic.” 

Mr. Lawrence’s conversation was indeed principally 
of the intimate order of things, and was concerned 
with details of births, deaths, and marriages such as 
the feminine mind is more generally supposed to 
indulge in. 

He drank several cups of tea, and was deeply in- 
terested in the fact that the tea service was not the 
one in common use at Bowshott, and that probably 
the bulk of the silver had been sent to the bank. He 
would have liked to make a tour of the rooms to see 
if there were any other changes noticeable anywhere, 
and he more than once remarked to his friends as 
they drove home in the motor-car that he could 
not understand why the drawing-rooms were swathed 
in brown holland unless Peter meant to go away 


PETER AND JANE 


151 


again. If so, when was the marriage to be? Why 
should it be postponed for more than a brief period 
of mourning? And why did the rooms which he had 
seen through the windows wear such a shut-up and 
dismantled appearance? He found food for con- 
versation during the whole of the drive home, and 
speculated upon Peter’s probable movements with the 
garrulousness that was habitual to him. 

The two men whom he had left behind in the library 
were seated quietly in leather armchairs on either 
side of the fire. 

Mr. Semple was a contented man and made an 
excellent companion; he was always interested in 
something, and quite disposed to take a book and 
remain quiet when Captain Ogilvie was busy or dis- 
inclined for conversation. They smoked in silence 
for a considerable time after their guests had left. 

“ Lady Falconer is a pleasant woman,” said Peter 
at last. “ I wonder what she and Sir John find to 
amuse them at Lawrence’s place ? ” 

“ She is a very pleasant woman,” said Mr. 
Semple, “ and she used to know your mother long ago 
in Spain.” 

Peter took the cigar out of his mouth and turned 
quickly and interrogatively towards the lawyer. “ I 
don’t suppose she was able to tell you anything,” he 
said with a sharp note of interest in his voice. 

u She was able to tell me,” said Mr. Semple, “ what 
I knew before, that ships sailing for Argentina stop 
at Lisbon and take up passengers there ; but I didn’t 


152 


PETER AND JANE 


know till this afternoon that a woman and a child 
whose passages were paid by Mrs. Ogilvie sailed from 
that place in December of the year she visited Cintra.” 


CHAPTER IX 


“I think I’ll go over and see Toffy,” said Peter 
to himself one day in the following week. Mr. Sem- 
ple had been down to Bowshott again bringing 
several details with him, and had left again that 
morning. Nigel Christopherson was ill at Hulworth 
with one of his usual appalling colds which brought 
him as nearly as possible to the grave every time they 
attacked him. Peter once again read through the 
letters and papers which he and the family lawyer 
had pored over until the small hours of this morning, 
and then he ordered his horse and rode over to see his 
friend. 

No one ever arrived at Hulworth without remark- 
ing on the extreme ugliness of the house. It was a 
flat-faced barrack-like residence with a stuccoed front 
and rows of ill-designed windows. There was a grim- 
looking flight of stone stairs with iron railings lead- 
ing to the front door, and beyond that were large 
and hideous rooms filled with treasures of art incon- 
gruously hung on lamentable wall-papers, or pendent 
over pieces of furniture which would have made a con- 
noisseur’s eyes ache. The house and its furnishings 
were indeed a strange mixture ; the owner of the grim 
pile, be it said, had a mind which presented a blank 
to the dictates of art, and it puzzled him sorely to 
determine which of his possessions were beautiful and 
153 


154 


PETER AND JANE 


which were not. He had heard people “ go crazy,” 
as he called it, over his pictures, which he thought 
hideous, while they had frankly abused his furniture, 
which he was inclined to think was everything that 
was desirable. 

“ There’s only one way,” he used to say hopelessly, 
u in which a fellow can know whether a thing is ugly 
or the reverse and that is by fixing a price to it. If 
only someone would be kind enough to stick on a lot 
of labels telling me what the things are worth I 
should know what to admire, and what to shudder at ; 
but it is the things which I personally like are always 
the things which other people abuse.” 

And alas for Sir Nigel and his lightly-held treas- 
ures of art; his pictures and the vases ranged in 
great glass cases in the hall were heirlooms, and 
Toffy in his most impecunious days would often look 
at them sadly and shake his head, murmuring to him- 
self, “ I’d take five hundred for the lot, and be glad 
to get rid of them ! ” There were days when in a 
gentle philosophical way he felt a positive sense of 
injury in thinking of the vases behind the big glass 
doors, and he would then go into intricate and com- 
plicated sums in arithmetic whereby he could tell 
what it cost him per annum to look at the contents of 
the cases and the old portraits in their dim frames. 

This afternoon he was lying on a florid and un- 
comfortable looking sofa in a very large drawing- 
room in front of a fireplace of white marble in scroll 
patterns and with a fender of polished steel. It was 


PETER AND JANE 


155 


probably the ugliest as well as the least comfortable 
room in the house, but it happened to be the only one 
in which there was a good fire this afternoon, and 
Toffy descending from his bedroom, weak and ill 
with influenza, had come in there at two o’clock and 
was now lying down with a railway rug placed across 
his feet, and his head uncomfortably supported by a 
hard roller cushion and an ornamentation in mahog- 
any, which gracefully finished off the pattern of the 
sofa frame. Many men when they are ill take the 
precaution of making their wills ; Sir Nigel’s prepara- 
tion for a possible early demise always took the form 
of elaborately and sadly adding up his accounts. He 
had a large ledger beside him on the sofa, and slips 
of paper covered with intricate figures which neither 
he nor anyone else could decipher. 

The faithful Hopwood had been despatched to Lon- 
don in order to learn chauffeur’s work, for Toffy 
had decided after working the matter out to a frac- 
tion, that a considerable saving could be effected in 
this way. His debts to the garage were being duly 
entered amongst Toffy’s liabilities at this moment as 
he lay on his sofa in the vast cold drawing-room. 

The drawing-room was not often used now, but it 
was the custom of his housekeeper to air the rooms 
once a week, and this being Wednesday she had 
lighted a fire there, while Lydia, a young housemaid 
and general factotum, had allowed all other fires to 
go out. There was a palpable sense of chilliness 
about the room, and in one corner of it the green 


156 


PETER AND JANE 


and gold wallpaper showed stains of damp. Long 
gilded mirrors between tall windows occupied one side 
of the room and had marble shelves beneath them 
upon which were placed ornate Bohemian glass vases 
and Ormulu clocks and candlesticks. Some uncovered 
and highly-polished mahogany tables imparted a hard 
and somewhat undraped look to the apartment. The 
windows with their aching lines of plate glass were 
draped with rep curtains of vivid green, while the 
floor was covered with an Aubussan carpet, exquisite 
in its colour and design. And between the green 
woollen bell-ropes on each side of the fireplace and 
above the cold hideousness of the marble mantelpiece 
hung a portrait by Romney of a lady as beautiful as 
a flower. 

Sir Nigel had endeavoured to eat for lunch part 
of a chicken which his housekeeper had warmed up 
with a little grey sauce; and he was now wondering 
as he lay on the sofa whether anyone would come 
if he were to tug at the green bell-rope over his head, 
or whether he could make his own way upstairs to his 
bedroom and get some fresh pocket handkerchiefs. 
He had had a temperature of a hundred and three for 
the greater part of the week, and he was now feeling 
as if his legs did not altogether belong to him, while 
to make up for their feebleness and lightness his head 
was most insistently there, and felt horribly hot and 
heavy. 

He had just decided that he had better mount the 


PETER AND JANE 


157 


long stairs to his room, for there was not only the 
consideration of handkerchiefs, but there was some 
medicine which the doctor had told him to take, but 
which he always forgot at the right moment. He 
thought the journey had better be made now and he 
could do the two things at one and the same time ; he 
walked with uneven steps to the window and looked 
out upon some stretches of field which were euphemis- 
tically termed the Park, and watched some sheep hud- 
dled together to protect themselves from the first 
sharp touch of frost, when he heard the sound of 
hoofs and saw Peter ride up to the door. 

“ It’s an extraordinary thing,” he said to himself 
as he saw his friend dismount. w Peter always seems 
to come when you want him. I believe he has got 
some sort of sense which tells him when his friends 
are a bit down in their luck ! ” 

Peter would, of course, fetch the beastly medicine 
from upstairs and the pocket handkerchiefs. He won- 
dered if he had ever felt ill in his life, and thought 
to himself, gazing without envy at the neat athletic 
figure on the horse, what a good fellow he was. He 
crept back to the sofa again, and extending his thin 
hand to Peter as he entered, said with a smile that 
never failed even when Toffy was at his worst, “ You 
see here the wreck of my former self. Sit down, 
Peter, and ring for tea, will you — there isn’t the 
smallest chance of your getting any ! ” 

“ Why didn’t you come to Bowshott, you ass, if 


158 


PETER AND JANE 


you were ill? ” said Peter sternly. “ You will kill 
yourself some day coming down to this half -warmed 
barn in the winter time.” 

“ It isn’t half-warmed,” said Toffy. “ I wish it 
were! This room is all right, isn’t it? I aired it 
by sleeping here last night.” 

“ What on earth for? ” demanded Peter, still in the 
stern tone of remonstrance. Toffy had been his fag 
at Eton and Peter had got into the habit of taking 
care of him. He knew the delicacy of his friend’s 
constitution better than most people did, and he ex- 
pended much affection upon him, and endeavoured 
without any success to make him take care of him- 
self. 

“ Why didn’t you sleep in your bed like a Chris- 
tian? ” he demanded sternly; “ you will kill yourself, 
if you go on playing the fool with your health ! ” 

“ The sheets seemed a bit damp in my bed, I 
thought,” said Toffy simply. 

“ Then why didn’t your idiot of a housekeeper air 
them? ” 

“ The duty of airing sheets is invested in the person 
of one Lydia, the niece of the above-mentioned house- 
keeper,” said Toffy. “ I asked her in the morning 
if my sheets had been aired, and she said that they 
had not. She further explained that she had taken 
the precaution of feeling them, and that they had 
not seemed very wet ! ” 

“ Oh, hang Mrs. Avory ! ” said Peter inwardly. 
“ Why has not Toffy got a good wife to look after 


PETER AND JANE 


159 


him ? Look here,” he said decisively, 44 I am going 
to sleep over here to-night, and see that you go to 
bed, and I’m going to get your sheets now, and warm 
’em.” 

u You’ll get a beastly dinner if you stay,” said 
Toffy through his nose. 

Peter brought the sheets down in a bundle, and 
placing a row of hideous walnut-wood chairs with 
their legs in the fender he proceeded to tinge the 
fine linen sheets a deep brown. 

“ They are warmed through,” he said grimly, when 
the smell of scorched linen became intrusive. 

“ I was thinking,” said Toffy, 46 would you mind 
putting them back on my bed; I don’t like to hurt 
the old bird’s feelings.” 

“ And yet,” as Mrs. Cosby observed after discov- 
ering the sheets laid cross-wise on the bed and the 
pillows lying forgotten on the floor — 46 yet they say 
that gentlemen are eafsier waited on than ladies ! My 
own belief is that babies themselves is less helpless 
than any of the gentlemen I ever had to do with 1 ” 

Peter made tea in the drawing-room and spilt a 
good deal of boiling water on the steel fender, and 
then he drew the bright green rep curtains across the 
tall cold windows and made up a roaring fire and 
pulled a screen round the sofa. He fetched his 
friend’s forgotten medicine from his bedroom and 
administered it, and told him with a lame attempt at 
jocosity that he should have a penny if he took it 
like a lamb! Peter was full of quite small jokes this 


160 


PETER AND JANE 


afternoon, and full, too, of a certain restlessness 
which had not expended itself when he had warmed 
sheets and made up fires and brewed tea to the de- 
struction of the Hulworth steel fenders. He talked 
cheerfully on a dozen topics of conversation current 
in the neighbourhood, and Toffy said, presently, that 
he found himself 44 pounds better” for his friend’s 
visit, and he sent over to Bowshott to give notice that 
Captain Ogilvie would stay the night, and to bring 
back his things. 

44 1 have been doing up my accounts,” said Toffy, 
44 and I believe the saddest book I ever read is my 
bank book! A chap has been down from the British 
Museum to look at those vases in the hall, and he 
says that one of them alone is worth four thousand — 
four thousand, Peter! For a vase that’s eating its 
head off in a glass case and might be broken any day 
by a housemaid while I perish with hunger.” 

44 If it’s money,” began Peter easily, 44 you’re an 
idiot if you don’t let me know what you want — ” 

And then the whole realisation of his uncertain 
position smote him sharply and cruelly for a moment, 
as he remembered that he did not know how he stood 
with the world as regards money, and that probably 
he was not in the position to lend a five-pound note 
to anyone. He had accumulated through sheer lazi- 
ness a certain number of large debts, the payment of 
which had never troubled himself or his creditors, who 
were only too glad to keep his name on their books, 
but now it seemed that if he were only to have a 


PETER AND JANE 


161 


younger son’s portion he might even find himself in 
debt to his brother’s estate. He had gone thoroughly 
into the will of his father with the lawyer, and found 
that everything which it was possible to tie up on 
the elder son had been willed to him. His own share 
of the patrimony if his brother were still alive would 
be but a small one. 

He got up from his chair and walked to the win- 
dow and pulling aside the curtain looked out on the 
frosty garden. 

“ It’s going to be a bitter cold night,” he said. 
“ I think I will just look in at your room again, and 
see if they have made up the fire properly.” 

He returned to the drawing-room and took up two 
or three newspapers in turn and laid them down again 
while Toffy watched him gravely. 

“ I’ve had a bit of a jar lately,” he said at last, 
taking up his stand with his back to the fire near Sir 
Nigel’s sofa. 

“ Have some dinner first,” said Toffy, “ and then 
we’ll go into the matter as I always do with my cred- 
itors. You see, if one has a cook like Mrs. Cosby, 
there is an element of chance in the question of get- 
ting dinner at all ; and another thing is it may be so 
bad you won’t survive it; so it’s not much use being 
miserable before dinner, is it, when perhaps you may 
be buried comfortably and respectably afterwards? ” 

The dinner was as bad as he had prophesied, and 
a heavy-footed lady — presumably the Lydia before 
referred to — handed round potatoes, and spilt wine 


162 


PETER AND JANE 


and grew very hot in the process. The mutton which 
had made a long journey through some cold and 
draughty passages reached the dining-room in a 
chilly state and the soup was as nearly as possible 
uneatable. The badly kept silver would probably 
have fetched a fortune at Christie’s, and the Rose du 
Barry dessert service had been in use ever since Toffy 
could remember, and its value was not even guessed 
at by him. The cut glass on the table had been sup- 
plemented by a number of pieces bought at the village 
shop, while the dinner service was the cheapest that 
could be got at the stores. The presence of Lydia, 
who listened open-mouthed to all that was said, made 
conversation impossible, until at last in an ecstasy of 
importance at having broken a dessert dish, she placed 
the wine upon the table and withdrew. Toffy car- 
ried the decanters into the drawing-room, where he 
believed he and Peter would be more comfortable, 
and having placed them on the table by the fire he 
congratulated his friend that they had both survived 
the ordeal of dinner, and then he suggested that Peter 
should tell him what was up. 

44 Rather a beastly thing has happened,” said Peter. 
He rose from the chair where he was sitting and went 
and stood by the marble mantelpiece. The black tie 
which he wore seemed to accentuate his fairness, and 
it was a boyish, unheroic figure which leaned against 
the whiteness of the marble mantelpiece as he began 
his puzzling tale. It did not take very long in the 
telling, and until he had finished Toffy had not 


PETER AND JANE 


163 


spoken. Indeed, there was silence for some time in 
the room after Peter had done, and then there being 
no necessity for much speech or protestation between 
the two, Toffy said merely, 44 What are you going 
to do?” 

44 I am going to Argentina next week,” said Peter. 
44 It seems proved beyond any manner of doubt that 
my mother most certainly paid the passages of a 
woman and a little boy to go there in the very month 
and in the year that my brother was supposed to have 
died, and Cintra or Lisbon are the last places where 
there is even the vaguest evidence of her having been 
seen with two boys.” 

Toffy lay on the sofa thinking, his arm thrown 
above his head in the attitude that was characteristic 
of him during the many weeks of illness that he usu- 
ally had in the year. 

44 She was always extraordinarily fond of you,” he 
said at last, and Peter set his mouth in exactly the 
way he used to do when he was a little boy, and was 
quite determined that he was not going to cry. 
Neither of them ever dreamed for a moment of blam- 
ing the dead woman, who by her action had left so 
much trouble and possibly so much misery behind 
her. 

44 There never was anyone like her ! ” said Peter 
gratefully, not weighing his mother’s deeds or mis- 
deeds in the balance, but filled only with the idea that 
whatever she did had been done for his sake. 

44 1 can’t think why,” said Toffy, 44 you should go 


1 64 


PETER AND JANE 


yourself. There must be plenty of lawyers in Buenos 
Ayres who would undertake the thing for you.” 

“ You see, it’s like this,” said Peter; “ if my brother 
is alive he has been done out of the place for twenty- 
five years, and if he is a good sort of chap and all 
that one would like to try and make it up to him in 
a way, and not let him feel that you grudge him his 
own.” 

Rather an absurd sentiment on the part of a man 
for a brother whom he had never seen, and who would 
disinherit him of pretty nearly all he possessed. But 
there is an element of fairness about English men 
and women which will obtrude itself from time to 
time to their own disadvantage. 

“We will brave the terrors of the vasty deep to- 
gether,” said Toffy ; “ it’s no use your going alone.” 

“ You ain’t up to it,” said Peter gruffly ; “ thanks 
all the same, old chap.” 

“ I must fly somewhere,” said Toffy ; “ it doesn’t 
much matter where.” 

“ Has the usual acute financial crisis come ? ” Peter 
said, looking affectionately at the long, thin figure 
on the sofa. “ You can’t the least deceive me into 
thinking you had better go into Argentina to hunt 
for a man who has been missing for twenty-five years. 
It isn’t good enough 1 ” 

“ I shall have to get a lot of new boots,” said Toffy 
thoughtfully; “it seems the right sort of thing to do 
when one is starting on an expedition, and I would 


PETER AND JANE 


165 


rather like to get some of those knives that fellows 
seem to buy when they go out to South America.” 

“You see,” objected Peter, allowing the question 
of boots and hunting knives to lapse, “ the place is 
right enough, I have no doubt, but it’s pretty big, 
and I don’t a bit know what is in front of me — I’ll 
tell you what I will do, though; I’ll send for you as 
soon as I get there if I find it’s a white man’s country 
at all, and then we will jog round together.” 

“ I suppose we couldn’t go in a yacht,” said Toffy, 
inspired with a sudden suggestion and sitting up on 
the sofa full of grave interest. “ There’d be much 
less chance of being copped on the pier than if one 
travelled on a liner. Another thing, I’m not at all 
sure that a yacht wouldn’t be a good investment; it 
really is the only way to live economically and keep 
out of the reach of duns at the same time. A nice lit- 
tle eighty-tonner now, for instance, with just two or 
three hands and a boy on board. What could be 
cheaper than that? And you could live the simple 
life to any extent that you liked! But of course 
something larger would be wanted for Argentina, and 
she couldn’t be fitted out in time. No, Peter, I think 
I’ll risk having the heavy hand of the law laid upon 
me at starting, and we’ll just have to lump it and 
go in a mail steamer.” 

Peter laughed. “ My bold buccaneer ! ” he said. 

They sat silent for a time in the drawing-room, 
with its crude colours and priceless china, while the 


166 


PETER AND JANE 


big fire in the burnished steel grate roared with a 
jolly sound up the big chimney, and the air was frosty 
and cold outside. The room for all its hideousness 
was full of pleasant recollections for them both, for 
when Hulworth was not let Toffy had often assembled 
bachelor parties there, and it had always been a second 
home to Peter, where he had been wont to keep a 
couple of guns and “ his things.” 

The actual journey to Argentina was not a matter 
demanding any courage on the part of either of the 
young men, but the result of that journey might have 
a grave effect on the fortunes of Peter Ogilvie. To- 
morrow was to have been his wedding day, and this 
fact was persistently present to both of them. A 
woman would probably have discovered in less than 
five minutes how long the wedding had been post- 
poned, and what Jane thought about it all. But the 
two men left the subject to the last, and it was with an 
effort that Peter said before they parted for the night, 
“ Whatever happens, we mean to try and be married 
when I come back. Jane is awfully plucky about it, 
but the Court of Chancery does not seem to regard 
me with much favour at present.” 

“ Let me be best man again,” said Toffy with a 
kindly look out of his deep-set blue eyes with their 
feminine lashes. 

“ It’s rather rough on Jane,” said Peter with a 
stilled and deliberately unemotional voice. 

“ It’s only for a year,” said Toffy, hopefully. 
“ Let’s make a solemn covenant,” he went on, “ that 


PETER AND JANE 


167 


we shall meet in this very room on the 25th of Oc- 
tober, 1906, with the wedding day fixed for to-mor- 
row again.” 

“Where’s your Bible?” said Peter. “If you 
haven’t got one in your pocket or under your pillow, 
will it do if I kiss your account book? ” 

“We will have everything just as it was going to 
be,” said Toffy cheerfully. “ And this time next 
year Jane will be staying with Miss Abingdon, and 
old Wrot will be ironing out his surplice — at least, 
Mrs. Wrot will, and he’ll be looking on and thinking 
he’s doing it — and I’ll be there, probably with a 
cold in my head as usual, and thereto I plight thee 
my troth ! ” 

He fingered in his pocket the wedding ring which 
Peter had given him for safe custody, and the care 
of which had seriously disturbed his slumbers at night. 
“ I’ll keep the ring till then, Peter, and place it on 
the third finger of Jane’s left hand — oh, no, you 
do that, by the way, and I shall have to wait till I get 
a bride of my own.” 

“ Here’s to her good health ! ” said Peter, and they 
began to talk nonsense about the future Mrs. Toffy 
and a hundred other things. For Peter was thinking 
that perhaps his wedding day might be five years 
hence, and that however they might plan that it 
should be the same as they had intended it should 
be, there was one person whom he had loved com- 
pletely in his own boyish undemonstrative way who 
could never be there. And Toffy was wondering how 


168 


PETER AND JANE 


long Horace Avory meant to live, and whether Carrie 
would mind very much his going to Argentina, and 
whether she would write him one of those long tear- 
blistered letters in her indistinct handwriting which 
he found so hard to read, and whether — suppose 
Horace Avory never died (as seemed quite likely), 
what would be the end of it all. Also he wondered 
whether Carrie and Miss Sherard would get on well 
together if they were to meet, and he hoped with 
manly stupidity that they might be friends. But 
what he wondered more than anything else, because 
it seemed much the most important matter in the world, 
was whether Kitty Sherard would allow him to go and 
say good-bye to her, and he thought with a feeling 
that was almost homesick in its intensity how entirely 
beautiful it would be to see her in this ugly old house 
of his in one of her rose-coloured gowns, and with 
her brown curls and her hopelessly baffling and be- 
wildering little ways. 

And each of the two young men being profoundly 
absorbed in other subjects talked cheerfully of the 
voyage, and speculated on what sort of sport they 
might incidentally get ; and they discussed much 
more seriously the fishing flies and guns they should 
take with them than they discussed the possible 
finding of Peter’s brother, or his own change of 
fortune. 

Lydia, listening at the door before she went to bed, 
for no particular reason, except that her aunt had for- 


PETER AND JANE 


169 


bidden it, decided that her master and Captain Ogilvie 
were planning a sporting expedition together — 
“ which means dulness and Aunt for me for a few 
months to come,” said Lydia with a sniff. 


CHAPTER X 


So Peter went to London to collect his kit and to 
say good-bye to Jane Erskine, and Sir Nigel 
Christopherson ordered a great many new boots of 
various designs and some warlike weapons, and then 
there came the time when he had to write to Mrs. 
Avory to say that he was going away, and when 
in the solitude of his life at Hulworth he had time 
to sit down and wonder what she would think about it. 
He was not long left in doubt. A telegram came 
first, and then a letter. “ Dearest, dearest,” it ran, 
“ I cannot let you go away.” It was a horribly 
compromising letter, but it came from a poor little 
woman who had fought long odds, and who was often 
very tired, and who sat for the greater part of the 
day making blouses for which she was seldom paid. 
Mrs. Avory was not a strong woman, nor in any 
way a great-minded woman, but she was one who, in 
spite of weakness and a good deal of feminine silli- 
ness, clung almost fiercely to the fact that she must 
be good, and who kept faithfully the promises she 
had made to a wholly unworthy person in the village 
church at home twelve years ago. Every word of 
the letter was an appeal to her dear, dear Nigel to 
stay at home and not leave her alone. She had so 
few friends and so little to look forward to except 

his Sunday visits. And then this poor tear-blotched 
170 


PETER AND JANE 


m 


letter which was neither very grammatical nor legibly 
written changed its tone suddenly, and Mrs. Avory 
said that perhaps it was better that he should go. 
Everything was very difficult, and it seemed that 
although his society was the one thing that she loved 
in the world, perhaps the fact of seeing him made 
things almost more difficult. Her husband, she heard, 
had been watching her movements lately; they said 
he wanted to marry someone else, so really and truly 
Nigel had better go, and if possible forget all about 
her forever. She was almost afraid to let him come 
and see her on Sundays now. But at least Horace 
could say nothing if he, Nigel, went to South Amer- 
ica. Even this small amount of caution was un- 
expected on the part of poor Mrs. Avory. Usually 
her natural and almost artless singleness of mind 
which not even years of matrimony with Horace 
Avory could drush out of her had led her into doing 
things which a woman less guileless would have 
avoided. And while obstinate almost to the point 
of starvation in refusing to take money from him or 
anyone else, she made no secret of the fact that she 
loved him. 

Toffy finished reading the letter and groaned. 
66 Was she never to have a good time ! 99 he wondered, 
thinking of the dull room and the half -finished 
blouses upon the table, the economical gas jets in 
the fireplace in lieu of the glow of a bright fire, and 
the dingy paper on the walls. The whole thing was 
too hard on her he thought, and everything in the 


PETER AND JANE 


m 

world seemed to be against her. He must not make 
things any worse for her, or wound that gentle 
heart whatever happened. 

Long ago when he was little more than a boy he 
had met Horace Avory and his wife in an out-of-the- 
way fishing village in Wales. Avory ’s treatment 
of the small timid woman, who, he said “ got on his 
nerves ” had roused pity and resentment in Toffy’s 
mind. Nothing that she did seemed to be right in 
her husband’s eyes. He bullied her, and her meekness 
was making a worse man of Horace Avory. A 
student of character would have seen directly that 
a woman with more power and strength of mind — 
a woman with a bit of the bully in herself — who 
could have taken the upper hand with the big red- 
faced tyrant, might have made a very fairly good 
imitation of a gentleman, and perhaps even of a 
good husband of Avory. But his wife — timid, 
meek and good, could only wince under the things he 
said, or let her big eyes suddenly brim over with 
tears. Toffy began to writhe under the cruel 
speeches he made to her; he never saw for an instant 
that there was a fault anywhere save with the hus- 
band of the down-trodden woman. She was one of 
those women who invariably inspire sweeping and 
contradictory criticisms on the whole of her sex. 
One man finding in her a proof that all women are 
angels, and the next discovering as certainly that all 
women aren’t fools. Alas, it is more often to the 
devout and distant lover that the kindlier judgment 


PETER AND JANE 


173 


belongs, while the intimacy of daily life may estab- 
lish the sterner conclusion. Mrs. Avory’s spirit was 
entirely broken, and she was still pretty, and Toffy 
began to try to protect her in many little ways from 
her husband’s habitual tyrannies. Did she have one 
of her crushing headaches, brought on for the most 
part by nervous fear, Toffy would take Horace away 
for a day’s fishing, or at meal time when they sat 
together in the dining-room of their little hotel, he 
would lead the conversation half a dozen times dur- 
ing dinner to pleasanter channels than those which 
Avory loved to choose. 

Perhaps in time Avory saw “ how the land lay ” 
and with a sort of spiteful desire to inflict an extra 
mede of suffering on his wife (whose rectitude he 
knew with almost a feeling of disdain was proof 
against temptation), he left the fishing village on the 
plea of business and went back to London, leaving 
his wife and child in the little hotel by the sea. 
There had followed a whole beautiful sunlit month 
of peace and quiet for Mrs. Avory, while her little 
girl played on the sands and she worked and read, 
or walked and fished with Nigel, and the colour came 
back to her cheeks, and the vague look of terror 
left her eyes. And for Toffy all the chivalry of his 
nature responded to the wistfulness of the little face 
beside him, and boyishly — for he was little more 
than a boy — he determined that Mrs. Avory should 
have a good time for once. 

The years between boyhood and manhood had been 


174 


PETER AND JANE 


bridged over by a sense that someone needed 
his care, and that he was a protection to a poor 
little woman who was weak and unhappy. And 
whether it was love or not the thing was honourable 
and straightforward as an English boy can make it. 
And then one night by the late post had come a 
letter from Horace Avory of a kind more particularly 
calculated to wound than usual, even with him. Mrs. 
Avory brought it to Toffy to read out on the sands ; 
and she broke down suddenly and sobbed as though 
her heart would break, and Toffy to comfort her had 
told her that he loved her, and meant every word he 
said, and asked what on earth he could do for her, 
and said that she must really try not to cry or it 
would make her ill. He put his arm around the 
trembling form — a crushed bruised little flower with 
all the beauty gone from it in the face of the pitiless 
storm of life — and Mrs. Avory took his hand in 
hers and clung to it, and then comforted, she had 
dried her eyes at last, and gone back to the little 
hotel again. Toffy saw the whole scene quite plainly 
before him now. The little whitewashed inn with the 
hill behind it, the moon-lit water of the bay, and the 
tide coming rolling in across the wet sands. When 
they met the following day he told her with boyish 
chivalry that he would wait for her for years if 
need be, and that some day they should be happy 
together. 

That had all happened long ago now, and during 
the years between they had hoped quite openly and 


PETER AND JANE 


175 


candidly that it would all come right some day, al- 
though hardly saying even to themselves that the 
coming right was dependent upon Horace Avory’s 
death. 

Meanwhile, Mrs. Avory worked hard at her un- 
remunerative tasks, and trimmed parasols and cut out 
blouses, and worked hopefully, because she knew that 
it would all come right some day, and because Nigel 
had said that he loved her. And Nigel himself, pit- 
iful as a woman for those who were weak or in dis- 
tress, and loyal in his friendship, wrote regularly to 
Mrs. Avory and always went to see her on Sundays 
when he was in London. And every night of his life 
of late he had dreamed of a girl dressed in rose 
colour, who had eyes of such softness that they con- 
tradicted all the absurd things she said, and who had 
lately given him her photograph to put on his writ- 
ing table. 

He read Mrs. Avory’s letter again (she wrote 
probably the worst hand in Christendom) and when 
he had spelt the ill-formed words once more, he dis- 
covered that the blotched and scrawled writing con- 
tained a postscript which he had not at first noticed. 
“ After all, you had better not come here,” it said, 
“ but I will run down and see you to-morrow. It 
is far the best and safest plan, and I must say 
good-bye. Please expect me by the three o’clock 
train.” The letter as usual had not been posted in 
time to reach him in the morning, and Toffy realised 
almost with a sense of disaster that to-morrow was 


176 


PETER AND JANE 


now to-day, and it was too late to write and expostu- 
late or suggest to Mrs. Avory how unwise her visit 
would be. There was nothing for it but to order the 
motor-car and go to the station to meet her, and 
afterwards to give her tea in the library, and say all 
the comforting and consoling things he could think 
of to her. 

Mrs. Avory looked more than usually worn and 
thin this afternoon; and her eyes, so ready to brim 
with tears, looked pathetically large in her sallow 
little face. She had been sitting up late for many 
nights to finish her work, and there had been 
“ bothers 99 in her little household which she took to 
heart and worried over. Her dress looked worn and 
shabby, and her gloves were darned. The nervous- 
ness in her manner was increased by ill health, and 
she kept repeating that she knew she had done the 
best thing in running down here quietly for an 
hour, and that she had quite meant to bring her 
child and the governess, because then nobody could 
possibly have said anything, but Dorothy had not 
been well, and she did not like either to bring her or 
to leave her alone. 

“ I didn’t know until the last minute that they 
couldn’t come,” she reiterated nervously. Perhaps 
who knows, poor soul, even she was dimly conscious 
that she had not done a very wise deed. But Toffy 
was all that was comforting and tender towards her; 
told her without flinching that of course she had 
done the right thing, and that it was awfully plucky 


PETER AND JANE 


177 


of her to have come. He took off the damp tweed 
cape which she wore and led her to the fire. They 
had tea together in the big cold drawing-room, and 
then came the time to say good-bye, and Mrs. Avory 
pleaded to walk to the station for the sake of one 
last walk together, and her watch — which never 
kept scrupulous time deceiving her as to the hour 
she missed the last train at the little branch station at 
Hulworth, and then wondered tearfully and with an 
access of nervousness which rendered her almost 
hysterical, what she should do. 

Toffy had a Bradshaw twelve months old which he 
promised to consult if Mrs. Avory would walk back 
with him across the fields again to the house. He 
consoled her as best he could, and assured her that 
it would be all right. And Mrs. Cosby, who was 
really a great woman at a crisis, suggested suddenly 
and with brilliance that there was a train from the 
main station ten miles off at eight o’clock and that 
the motor, if it did not break down, might take them 
there in half an hour. She provided warm wraps for 
the lady, and Nigel found rugs for her, and when 
all had been arranged, and she who got so little 
pleasure started for a moonlight drive in the cold 
crisp air, with Nigel taking care of her and wrap- 
ping her up warmly in rugs and furs, Mrs. Avory 
felt with a sudden rush of that joy of which she had 
so little experience, that all had turned out happily 
and for the best. 

It was not Toffy’s fault upon this occasion that 


178 


PETER AND JANE 


the motor-car came to grief. Mr. Lawrence’s big 
Panhard ran into them when they were seven miles 
from home, and Mrs. Avory was taken back to Hul- 
worth insensible and with a broken arm. Mr. 
Lawrence was himself braised and shaken, but he 
helped to take Mrs. Avory home, where the house- 
keeper’s greeting convinced him, if he had required 
convincing, that Mrs. Avory was staying at Hul- 
worth. He said good night when he had done every- 
thing that was useful and neighbourly, and had sent 
his chauffeur in his own car for the doctor, and had 
been helpful in getting remedies and suggesting 
cures. And the following day he had the pleasure 
of being first with the news of Mrs. Avory’s escapade. 
Half his friends and neighbours heard all about it 
before lunch time; his own bruises — rather obtru- 
sively displayed — were proof of the truth of his 
story, if proof were needed. And Mr. Lawrence 
finished up his well-spent morning by lunching with 
Miss Abingdon, and by recounting to her in his high- 
pitched gossiping voice his very latest piece of in- 
telligence. 

It was at Miss Abingdon’s that Mr. Lawrence got 
his first disappointment in his successful tour as a 
news agent that morning. Miss Abingdon failed to 
receive the story with as much honest pleasure as 
many of his other hearers had evinced. She re- 
membered Toffy’s face with the almost childlike ex- 
pression, such as very long lashes seem to impart, 
and his serious air during the time he was her guest 


PETER AND JANE 


179 


and had lain in her fragrant big guest chamber and 
read the Bible. 

“ I don’t believe it,” said Miss Abingdon sharply. 

Sometimes these ladies of a sterner period than 
ourselves say quite surprisingly rude things in the 
most natural and simple way. 

“ But it’s a fact, really ! ” said Mr. Lawrence with 
enjoyment. “ Why, the first thing the housekeeper 
said to her was, 4 So, you’re back again ! ’ No one 
had seen Toffy for ages. He said he had influenza.” 
Mr. Lawrence was going to add some jocular words 
to the effect that Toffy was a sly dog, but something 
in Miss Abingdon’s face checked him, and he mur- 
mured only that it was an awful pity; ’pon his word 
it was ! 

And then Kitty Sherard came in; she was staying 
with Miss Abingdon for a few days to console her 
for Jane’s absence. Miss Abingdon did not quite 
approve of her, but alas, for the frailty of humanity! 
the man or woman who is amusing is readily forgiven 
and easily excused. Miss Sherard was amusing ; 
no one could deny it. She told her risque stories 
with the innocent look of a child, her big eyes raised 
almost with an air of questioning to her hearer’s 
face, and she was boundlessly affectionate, although 
she said such dreadful things, and where she was 
there were young men gathered together. Like the 
lady in the Scottish poem, “ you might set her on 
Tintock Tap, and the wind would blow a man till 
her.” 


180 


PETER AND JANE 


She came up the drive now, Canon Wrottesley’s 
two elder sons with her and a sailor friend of theirs, 
and she was smiling at them all quite indiscrimi- 
nately and doing exquisite damage to their hearts 
without in the least intending it. 

Miss Sherard had been shooting duck in the 
marshes below Bowshott, where Peter had given her 
leave to shoot when she liked; and she came towards 
the house now under the frost-laden trees, a miniature 
gun over her shoulder, and clad in a brown shooting 
dress with a knot of her favourite colour under her 
very provoking chin. 

There was a certain jauntiness about Kitty which 
became her charmingly. The girl was so thoroughly 
well-bred that an excuse might have been found for 
her had she worn a billy-cock hat ! Even Miss 
Abingdon always remembered that Kitty had lost 
her mother when she was four years old and since 
then she had been the playmate and boon companion 
of a man who had been accounted fast even in the 
go-ahead set in which he lived, and who had taken 
his daughter to every race meeting in England since 
the time when she could first sit beside him on the 
front seat of his coach. He had never allowed her 
to go to school, and he had dismissed half a dozen 
governesses in turn because they were trying to make 
a prim little miss of her, and had always insisted on 
pouring out tea for him as if they expected him to 
marry them. When Kitty was sixteen he dismissed 
“ the whole bothering lot of old women ” and finished 


PETER AND JANE 


181 


her education himself. Lord Sherard spoke French 
like a native, and was one of the best riders and 
sportsmen of his day. He faithfully conveyed all 
that he knew to his daughter, with the result that 
Kitty had more knowledge of French literature than 
of English, and she and her father conversed but 
little with each other in their native tongue. She 
could bring down her birds with the best, and ride 
straight, and she had a queer smattering of Greek 
and Latin, and knew nothing at all of geography 
and arithmetic, and had the vaguest possible sense 
of the conventionalities of life. But the result — 
in spite of all the well-wishers who bewailed Kitty’s 
upbringing, and her numerous aunts and uncles and 
cousins who condemned Lord Sherard’s system — 
the result as far as Kitty was concerned was that she 
had turned out a beautiful and most engaging young 
woman with eyes that looked frankly and charitably 
on the world. She loved you so much that she 
nearly always had her arm linked in yours when she 
told her absurd little stories, and she smiled so de- 
lightedly when you saw the joke of them, that even 
when you said, “ Well, really Kitty ! ” you knew quite 
well that hers was a sort of innocence of daring, 
and you warned her severely that she must be very 
careful, indeed, to whom she said things like that, but 
that of course it didn’t matter a bit as far as you 
yourself were concerned, because you understood her 
and loved her — And as everybody else said exactly 
the same sort of thing to her and because no one 


182 


PETER AND JANE 


would have ventured to crush that blithe and child- 
like nature by one word of real disapproval, there 
was really not much hope of Kitty ever reforming 
and being sober-minded and well-behaved and satis- 
factory. The plague of it was you couldn’t help 
loving her whatever she did, and she loved you, too, 
which was perfectly intoxicating when you came to 
think of it, except that you knew that she loved at 
least a hundred different people in exactly the same 
sort of way. She kept her real affection for her 
father and Jane Erskine, and lately she had fallen 
in love — which is a different thing — with Sir 
Nigel Christopherson. 

So far she had not acknowledged the fact to her- 
self. She believed in golf playing and straight rid- 
ing and she thoroughly enjoyed a hockey match, but 
love did not seem quite compatible with these healthy 
and sensible pursuits. Love meant dreaming and 
looking at the moon and writing interminable letters, 
all of which things seemed to Miss Sherard wholly 
unsuited to all the “ good sort ” of girls whom she 
knew, and who had excellent times and received a 
vast deal of admiration and attention with remarkable 
indifference. 

The first thing that had really alarmed Kitty 
about herself was the fact that one day when she 
was crossing Miss Abingdon’s square hall she had 
seen a straw hat lying on one of the tables, and her 
heart, a remarkably sound organ up to the present 
moment, had given a curious leap which was almost 


PETER AND JANE 


183 


painful, and then had sunk again just as suddenly 
when she realised that perhaps after all the straw 
hat belonged to Peter. 

And then had come that day of positive weakness 
at the races, of which Kitty never spoke and never 
even allowed herself to think. . . . She had 
told elaborate fibs to Jane Erskine on the way home 
about the exact moment when her headache had begun 
to be bad, and how she had had just the same dizzy 
turn several times on the previous day. Jane ac- 
cepted all her statements in her usual guileless man- 
ner, and was very sorry that Kitty had a headache, 
but thought that she was making more fuss about it 
than was quite usual with her. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Lawrence was sitting waiting in 
Miss Abingdon’s drawing-room in order to have 
lunch, and to secure still another hearer to whom 
he could tell his little bit of gossip. 

Kitty stamped her feet in the hall to get the 
frosty time off them, and then drew off her gloves 
and came forward to the drawing-room fire, with the 
big white sheepskin in front of it; and kneeling 
down before the blaze she told Mr. Lawrence and 
Miss Abingdon collectively that they had had very 
good sport in the marshes, and that she had brought 
back some duck for Miss Abingdon ; and didn’t every- 
body think it was too awfully cold, and what would 
their poor hunters do if this frost continued? 

Finally, having enunciated all these small remarks, 
Miss Kitty turned a radiant face on their big visitor 


184 


PETER AND JANE 


who was stretched luxuriously in a big armchair 
by the fire, and bade him tell her all the very latest 
news, for she expected all sorts of gossip and if pos- 
sible some scandals from him. 

Mr. Lawrence laughed delightedly ; he was really 
proud of his reputation as a scandal-monger. 
“ Well,” he said, “ I believe I can supply you with 
the very latest thing of that description,” and then 
he told her the story. 

It is not often, perhaps, that a very young girl 
gets a blow of this particular sort. Something may 
be heard in disparagement of the man she loves, but 
Mamma explains gently to her that the object of her 
affections is not such a good fellow as they sup- 
posed, or Papa declares positively that he is not 
satisfied with young So-and-so, and refuses to give 
any explanation. But Kitty had led a rough-and- 
tumble sort of life, and everyone knew perfectly 
well that hers had been a liberal education at the 
hands of her father in the way of what is called 
worldly knowledge. Even Mr. Lawrence would not 
have blurted out his tale in the manner he had just 
done to Jane Erskine, for instance. But bless you! 
everyone knew that old Lord Sherard told his 
daughter smoking-room stories, and that she with 
him stayed in Continental hotels which some very 
particular mothers would not have allowed their 
daughters to enter. Consequently there was almost 
a brutality of frankness about the unvarnished way 
in which Mr. Lawrence repeated his cherished his- 


PETER AND JANE 


185 


tory. He even ventured on the “ sly dog ” style of 
facetiousness which the sight of Miss Abingdon’s 
grey hair and spotless cap had repressed, and he 
wound up by saying in a very charitable way, that 
he didn’t blame the poor little woman for she had a 
perfect beast of a husband. 

Kitty was still kneeling on the white sheepskin 
rug, and holding out her cold hands to the blaze 
when Mr. Lawrence had finished; and either she had 
not lost colour or the fire supplied the glow lacking 
to her cheeks. Her hands never trembled, and Miss 
Abingdon, who had tried without success once or 
twice to catch Mr. Lawrence’s eye and to check his 
loquacity, shook her head as she realised that Kitty 
did not seem the least bit shocked. 

“ They must have blessed you for running into 
them,” she said, and her voice was just as gay as 
usual. “ But after all,” she added, “ how lucky it was 
you and no one else! And how skilfully you did it! 
You sent Mrs. Avory back to Hulworth just suffi- 
ciently incapacitated to keep her a prisoner without 
making any of us too sorry for her, and you have 
had a long and happy morning telling all your 
friends and neighbours the whole history of her 
escapade.” 

Mr. Lawrence had no idea that Miss Kitty could 
be disagreeable, and he laughed in rather an awk- 
ward and resentful manner, and said that she seemed 
to forget that he had had a very bad bruise himself, 
which wasn’t too pleasant. 


186 


PETER AND JANE 


Miss Sherard sympathised and admired the small 
bruise, as she was evidently intended to do. She was 
not as a rule very civil to Mr. Lawrence, but to-day 
after her first rather severe treatment of him, he 
was fain to admit that he had never known her more 
agreeable, while he had certainly never seen her look 
so pretty. Her cheeks glowed after the long morn- 
ing in the cutting keen air down at the marshes, 
and her eyes, always large and full of changing 
lights and shadows, burned with something like bril- 
liancy to-day. 

The two young Wrottesleys gazed with whole- 
hearted boyish admiration at her, and their sailor 
friend who had succumbed to Kitty’s charms at a 
very early hour of the day, could only look with 
devotion at this girl who could hold the whole table 
by her wit, and could cap one story with a dozen 
others, and who was such a thorough good sports- 
man to boot, and brought down the birds so amaz- 
ingly. 

When the gentlemen had left, Kitty changed her 
shooting dress for a habit and announced to Miss 
Abingdon, who suggested that she should rest for 
the remainder of the afternoon, that in spite of the 
hard roads she was going to give exercise to one of 
Jane’s horses. She mounted the hunter and went off 
alone, blowing kisses to Miss Abingdon from the 
tips of her riding gloves, and so out of the white 
gates down the road to the left, and then into the 
open country. She set her horse at a fence and 


PETER AND JANE 


187 


flew over it. Her small white teeth were pressed to- 
gether, and her eyes under level black eyebrows had 
a fierce look in them. She pulled her hat more 
firmly down upon her brows and steered her hunter 
across country, as though following the quickest 
burst of hound of the season. Kitty was a tireless 
rider, and Jane’s hunter did not want exercise for some 
little time after this. The country round Bowshott 
is known as “stiff” for hunting people, but Kitty 
had marked out a straight line for herself, and took 
everything that came in her way with a sort of fool- 
hardiness which made a trifle of big hedges or yawn- 
ing ditches, and all the time she was saying to herself, 
“ I’ll never forgive him, never ! ” She had been 
brought up in a strange school and had suffered 
very little by it. Her code of honour was as keen 
as a boy’s, and her innate sense of right and wrong 
just as tender and as sensitive as that of any other 
clear-minded honest-souled young woman, and she 
had given her whole heart to Nigel Christopherson, 
and believed that he had given his to her. And now 
he was at Hulworth with Mrs. Avory and Mr. 
Lawrence was touring about the country in his big 
red motor-car telling everybody about it. 

Mrs. Wrottesley heard the story from her maid 
who had it from Miss Abingdon’s butler and she 
told it to her mistress when they were counting charity 
blankets together in Mrs. Wrottesley’s bedroom. 
The Canon was away from home and Mrs. Wrot- 
tesley was having an uninterrupted few days to do 


188 


PETER AND JANE 


her work without calls upon her to come and admire 
Canon Wrottesley. The sensational story which had 
held the servant’s hall entranced was received very 
quietly by her. She sat a full minute without say- 
ing anything at all, and then she finished counting 
the blankets. When that useful task was over Mrs. 
Wrottesley began to speak. This was a much more 
unusual event with her than it was with most people, 
and what made it more forcible was that she began 
to speak deliberately and with intention. Her con- 
versation opened with the unexpected announcement 
that she had always believed that her maid was more 
or less of a fool, but that she, Mrs. Wrottesley, wanted 
her to be as little of a fool for the next few days as 
it was possible for one with her limitations of in- 
tellect to be. 

“ I am going to stay over at Hulworth,” said Mrs. 
Wrottesley. “ Pack my box, please, and order the 
carriage to be round in half an hour.” 

She drove over to Hulworth, her plain rather 
austere face showing very little expression upon it, 
and she reached the big ugly house to find Toffy sit- 
ting over a smouldering fire in the drawing-room, his 
hair rumpled up from his forehead, and his head 
buried in his hands, and Mrs. Avory upstairs still 
suffering from slight concussion of the brain. 

There are times when the strong arm of a man is 
the only needful and the only serviceable thing in 
the world ; but there are times when it is only a strong 
woman who is wanted, or who is capable of a certain 


PETER AND JANE 


189 


sort of work. Mrs. Wrottesley was forcible by her 
very power of silence. She uttered no exclamation 
when she met her young friend, and saw his almost 
distracted attitude in front of the fire. She asked 
him quietly if he would mind putting on a little more 
coal and ordering tea, and she further requested 
that her trunk might be taken upstairs, and she said 
that she would like a few minutes’ conversation with 
Mrs. Cosby as soon at it was convenient for that 
lady to join her in her bedroom. 

“ And what I say is,” said Mrs. Cosby as she 
rejoined Lydia downstairs, “it isn’t as though there 
was a lot of gossiping men in the house ; there’s only 
you and me, and we can keep things to ourselves, I 
hope. I sat up with that poor timid upstairs last 
night, and I don’t mind doing it again to-night, but 
a poor plain-looking little thing she is, and no better 
than one of ourselves, working for her bread as she 
does.” From which it will be seen that the house- 
keeper was a kind-hearted woman, but a snob. 

Lydia took a cheerful view of the case, and said 
that there were advantages after all in living in an 
out-of-the-way place like Hulworth, for at least your 
business was your own and no one else’s. Mrs. 
Wrottesley in a brown merino dress and simple 
brooch, and a gold watch chain round her neck de- 
scended to the drawing-room and made tea, and 
gave an excellent cup of the same to Toffy. 

“ I don’t know how you ever thought of coming,” 
said Toffy looking at her with his big eyes which 


190 


PETER AND JANE 


were about as full of perplexity and helplessness as 
a young man’s could well be. “ I thought of writ- 
ing to Peter, but after all this is his last time with 
Jane, and I have no relations myself, and I couldn’t 
ask Lawrence not to say anything because that would 
have given away the whole show.” 

“ I think I can settle everything satisfactorily 
with Mr. Lawrence,” said Mrs. Wrottesley, “ and 
supply him with a little bit of the story which he 
has left out. Mr. Lawrence is proverbially ill- 
natured in his own kind way, and it would not have 
been unlike him to omit the fact that I was staying 
with you during the time Mrs. Avory was here.” 

“ She only came down yesterday afternoon to say 
good-bye to me,” said Toffy eagerly. 

“ And I arrived by the same train,” said Mrs. 
Wrottesley, “ which was very convenient.” 

Toffy got up from his chair and crossed to the 
other side of the hearth and kissed Mrs. Wrottes- 
ley. 

It was not an unusual thing for Mrs. Wrottesley 
to drive over to Hulworth to put housekeeping mat- 
ters straight when they were at their most acute 
stages of discomfort, or when Toffy was more than 
usually ill. She was quite at home in the house, and 
she now drew up a writing table to the fire, and 
penned a number of notes in her neat precise hand, 
headed with the Hulworth address telling her friends 
how sad she considered the accident of last night, how 
attentive Mr. Lawrence had been, and how of course 


PETER AND JANE 


191 


she must give up her engagements at home for the 
next few days, as she would not dream of leaving 
until Mrs. Avory was able to leave also. The notes 
fell like a series of cold douches upon the warm in- 
terest and keen excitement prevalent at Culversham. 
Perhaps only Miss Abingdon was sincerely glad that 
conventionalities had been in force throughout, and 
she took Mrs. Wrottesley’s open letter to Kitty 
Sherard, who astonished her very much by exclaim- 
ing, “ When Mrs. Wrottesley is dead I don’t the least 
mind walking bare-foot to her shrine!” And then 
she gave an odd little laugh which was so very nearly 
like crying that Miss Abingdon looked at her amazed, 
and decided that Kitty was going to have a cold in 
her head. 

“ Your language is a little exaggerated, dear,” 
she said severely. “No one could be more delighted 
than I am that Mrs. Wrottesley was at Hulworth, 
though even so I doubt if it was a very wise thing 
for a married woman to pay visits without her hus- 
band. Still no doubt Canon Wrottesley in his usual 
broad-minded way arranged that she should be there. 
He is always so thoughtful and self-sacrificing, and 
it’s more than good of him to spare his wife to nurse 
Mrs. Avory. He is an example to us all.” 

Canon Wrottesley had always been devoted to his 
wife. Her quiet dress and her mantle had ever 
seemed to him the essence of good-womanhood, and 
he respected her for her considerable fortune as well 
as for her unimpeachable orthodoxy. His highest 


192 PETER AND JANE 

term of praise of her was to speak of her as the help- 
meet for him. 

The Canon was now sitting in the very charming 
library of the house of his Bishop, where he was 
spending a few days, and was busy inditing a few 
lines to his wife to ask her if the latest news from 
Culversham was true. He was warned by a curious 
presentiment that the information which he had re- 
ceived was in accordance with facts, and, being al- 
ways ready with a word of counsel, Canon Wrot- 
tesley was writing to his wife to warn her that until 
the whole thing blew over it would be wiser for her 
not to see anything of Mrs. Avory. Considering his 
own and her position in the parish he thought they 
could not be too careful. 

When the second post arrived at the Palace bring- 
ing him the unexpected news that his wife was at 
that moment nursing Mrs. Avory at their neigh- 
bour’s house, Canon Wrottesley felt one of those 
shocks which in all their painfulness can only be 
realised, perhaps, by those who hold a conspicuous 
position in a very small society. When the world 
is narrowed down to a very little place, its weight 
is felt more heavily than when its interests and its 
knowledge are dispersed over a wider area. Canon 
Wrottesley was a vain man, and he was wont to be- 
lieve that the moral and intellectual life of his parish 
was dependent upon his example as their parish 
priest. His narrow surroundings had come to be 
for him a world in itself, and the public opinion of 


PETER AND JANE 


193 


the little circle in which he lived was of almost ridic- 
ulous weight and importance to him. 

He believed that poor Henrietta had meant well 
when she had gone to Hulworth to look after Mrs. 
Avory; but her action proved to the Canon what he 
had always known — that a woman requires guidance, 
and he meant to tell his wife kindly how much wiser 
it would have been if before taking any action in 
this matter she had wired to him for advice. 

The thing was a real trouble to him and helped 
to spoil his enjoyable stay at the Palace. He knew 
himself to be popular there and that his visit had 
given real pleasure. He had been asked to improvise 
upon the piano every evening, and had even sung 
once, saying gracefully to the Bishop’s daughter 
when she had concluded her very indifferent accom- 
paniment to the song — “ an accompanist is bom, 
not made!” He had preached one of his favourite 
sermons on Sunday, which had not only swelled the 
offertory bag to an unusual size, but had obtained 
for the Canon quite a sheaf of compliments which 
he looked forward to retailing to Henrietta at home. 
He left the pleasant ways of the Bishop’s Palace 
determined to face the difficulties that awaited him 
with a magnanimous mind. He did not like Henri- 
etta’s being “ mixed up in this affair ” at all, and as 
he sat in the first-class carriage of the train on his 
homeward journey, a rug about his knees and a 
footwarmer at his feet, he decided that the wisest 
and best thing he could do would be to shorten his 


194 


PETER AND JANE 


journey by getting out at Hulworth station and go- 
ing straight up to Sir Nigel’s house. When he had 
time and was able to see how Culversham viewed this 
affair of Mrs. Avory’s he could then decide whether 
his wife should call upon her or not. But for the 
present he saw quite plainly that inaction and pa- 
tience were the best course. 

He gave up his ticket at the railway station with 
a fine air of reserve and bade his coachman drive 
to Hulworth in the same manner in which a states- 
man might have imparted a Cabinet secret to his 
secretary. The brougham drove on through the 
grim stone gates of Hulworth and deposited the 
Canon before the flight of stone steps leading to the 
front door. He decided, if possible, not to take any 
food in the house, nor even to sit down if this could 
be avoided. He was not going to blame Sir Nigel 
yet but to say the least of it he thought he had been 
unwise. The Canon stood with his back to the fire 
in the drawing-room looking judicial and massive. 
Presently Mrs. Wrottesley came in and saluted her 
husband with that calm affection which twenty-five 
years of married life may engender. 

He stooped and kissed her gravely. “ My love,” 
he said, “ this is not the place for you.” 

It seemed to Mrs. Wrottesley to come very sud- 
denly to her that almost for the first time in their 
married life there was going to be a real matter of 
difference between them in which neither meant to 


PETER AND JANE 


195 


give in. She regretted in her quiet way that it should 
be so. 

“ Remember,” said Canon Wrottesley kindly, 
“ that I don’t in any way blame Sir Nigel ; I think he 
is foolish, and I think, considering Mrs. Avory’s 
position she has been more than foolish. A woman 
who is separated from her husband cannot be too 
careful.” 

“ I am afraid,” said Mrs. Wrottesley with regret 
in her voice and coming straight to the main issues 
at once in her ungraceful way, u that I must stay 
here for the present.” 

The Canon although he did not intend doing so, 
sat down heavily on one of the drawing-room chairs. 

Of course we may laugh at it, but it was a hor- 
rible time for both these affectionate elderly people 
who had always lived a peaceful, orderly, well-con- 
ducted life together, and whose home had been — 
in the mind of the Canon at least — the model house- 
hold of the neighbourhood. Also it was a real shock 
to him to realise that Henrietta did not mean to yield 
in this matter. She spoke with regret, but she spoke 
absolutely firmly. It must always be a surprise — 
even to a prophet — when a dumb creature speaks, 
and in a certain sense Mrs. Wrottesley had always 
been dumb. Her soul was great and her mind was 
broad, not to say unconventional in its tendencies ; 
it had been confronted with the petty laws which 
seemed to have their foundations in rules and ob- 


196 


PETER AND JANE 


servances which never made for goodness or real 
helpfulness in the world, and her faith, which was 
great, had been confined in a narrow creed. And 
now after years of silence and affectionate wifely 
submission Mrs. Wrottesley was asserting herself. 

“ You must be reasonable, dear,” her husband said 
at last. 

Mrs. Wrottesley replied, “ I want to be reason- 
able ; ” and she told him the whole story of how her 
presence there might save from very serious conse- 
quences two people who were admittedly not very 
wise, but who were certainly nothing more than fool- 
ish, and might prevent a scandal which would damage 
them in the eyes of the world and result in all sorts 
of trouble for Mrs. Avory. 

“ The scandal cannot now be prevented,” said 
Canon Wrottesley. “ I heard myself from Mr. 
Lawrence this morning telling me the whole story. 
My love, you cannot touch pitch and not be defiled; 
Mrs. Avory must send for her own relations, if she 
has any, to help her out of this regrettable business. 
I cannot allow you to appear in the matter at all.” 

“ I have had my letters addressed here for the 
last two days,” said Mrs. Wrottesley. 

The Canon rose from his chair and began to pace 
up and down the room. “ I don’t know what people 
will say,” he said, his forehead knitted into a frown, 
and his fingers impatiently letting off small pistol 
shots against his palm. There had never been a 
better wife nor mother, he admitted to himself, than 


PETER AND JANE 


197 


Henrietta Wrottesley, but she was a child still in 
many ways. “ To-morrow is Sunday,” he went on, 
“ and we must appear in church together. In this 
way only can we shut people’s mouths and prevent 
their talking, and although I don’t like anything in 
the form of secrecy or underhand actions, no one need 
know that you have been staying here.” 

“ I am afraid,” said Mrs. Wrottesley, still in that 
unyielding tone of gentle regret, “ that it is too late 
to keep my movements secret. There is an account 
of the accident in the local paper in which it is stated 
that I was staying here at the time.” 

Canon Wrottesley loved to see his name in print, 
and looked with interest at the cutting, while Mrs. 
Wrottesley added — “ I sent the communication to 
the paper.” 

Then Canon found himself wondering in a puzzled 
way what was the ultimatum that a man should im- 
pose upon a woman. What, in point of fact, was 
the force that could be brought to bear upon the 
case. In primitive days the matter would have been 
easily enough settled, but in modem times moral 
force is the only lever, and although most women he 
admitted were very easily influenced by moral force, 
it struck him painfully that upon this occasion his 
wife was not going to be moved by it. 

A beneficent Providence who I think we may allow 
comes often to the assistance of persons whose storm 
rages in quite a small and narrow tea-cup, so long 
as they are genuinely attached to each other, may 


198 


PETER AND JANE 


have designed that at this moment Lydia of the heavy 
foot should enter with the second post’s letters, and 
amongst those which had been sent on to Mrs. Wrot- 
tesley was one directed to her husband in dear Miss 
Abingdon’s handwriting. 

The Canon opened it unheedingly. Miss Abing- 
don often sent him little notes, but never, perhaps, 
had she written one which spoke more genuinely out 
of a full heart than this one did. She had written 
in the middle of the night, although she felt how dis- 
orderly and almost indecorous such a proceeding 
was. By so doing she had missed the evening post, 
but she sent the missive to the village early in the 
morning by the hand of a groom, and felt glad as 
she did so that there were no secrets in her life. A 
letter posted an unaccustomed hour suggested in- 
trigues and Miss Abingdon wondered how anyone 
could live who had such things upon their consciences. 

Her unusual behaviour accounts for the fact that 
her letter arrived by the second post at Hulworth. 
Canon Wrottesley was so much upset at the time that 
he read halfway through it before he quite realised 
what it was about. 

“ My dear Canon,” it ran ; “ you must allow me 
to say what I think of your splendid conduct in 
regard to poor little Mrs. Avory. I had heard the 
story, of course, of her very indiscreet behaviour, but 
it was not till this morning that I knew how splen- 
didly you had thrown yourself into the breach by 
allowing Mrs. Wrottesley to go over to Hulworth to 


PETER AND JANE 


199 


stay and nurse the poor thing. Of course no one 
can say a word as your wife was there; and I must 
tell you that I hear on all sides nothing but the kind- 
est things said about your action in the matter. I 
do not often write so unreservedly as at present, but 
I do feel strongly on the subject, and on occasions 
such as this I may be allowed to say that it takes a 
good man, and a broad-minded one to act promptly 
and generously — would that there were more of 
them in the English church ! 99 

Miss Abingdon used to fear afterwards that per- 
haps she had said too much; but to her also as to 
Mrs. Wrottesley the relief of speaking her mind once 
in a way was irresistible. 

Of course it weakened the Canon’s position to show 
the letter to his wife. He ought to have relented 
gracefully and with dignity, and have consented as a 
personal favour, even against his proper judgment 
to his wife’s remaining where she was. But Miss 
Abingdon’s letter was too full of kind remarks to 
be kept to himself. He handed it to Henrietta, and 
when she had read it, he folded it up carefully and 
put it in his pocket. 

“ That,” he said, and his heart glowed, “ is one of 
the best women that ever lived, and perhaps, who 
knows, there may be others who see this matter in 
the right light also.” All that he had previously 
said passed completely out of his mind, as he talked 
of the insight and the complete understanding that 
some good women evinced. He began to speak with 


wo 


PETER AND JANE 


manly kindliness of the poor little invalid upstairs, and 
when at last he bade good-bye to his wife he kissed 
her affectionately and bade her — in his usual for- 
mula — not to do too much. 

Miss Abingdon’s letter had shown the Canon to 
himself in his true light; before he reached home he 
had come to believe that it was he who had urged his 
wife to go to Hulworth. As was usual with him 
when he felt strongly he adopted a character-role, 
and his handsome face wore a more than usually 
beneficent and great-minded expression upon it, as he 
walked with his fine erect carriage through the village 
that night, while it would hardly have required a play 
bill of dramatis yersonoz to indicate the fact that the 
Canon was once more the Vicar of Wakefield in the 
supreme moment when he visits Olivia in prison. 
He had promised his wife before leaving to drive 
over often to see her during her stay at Hulworth; 
and the following Sunday he preached one of his 
most memorable sermons on the text, “ And when 
they shall take up some deadly thing it shall not hurt 
them.” 


CHAPTER XI 


Mrs. Wrottesley remained at Hulworth until her 
patient was better, and then the good-hearted Canon 
joined her there for a few days and was altogether 
charming to poor little Mrs. Avory who liked him far 
better than she liked his wife. And Toffy went up 
to London to join Peter Ogilvie and to take ship for 
Argentina, and Peter went to say another good-bye 
to Jane Erskine. 

Those two last-named cheerful people were in a 
state of acute unhappiness which each was doing 
his or her best to conceal. It required some pluck 
to be perfectly even spirited and to show good met- 
tle in those days. The world contained for them 
nothing but a sense of parting and uncertainty, and 
a horrible feeling of disappointment. Their two 
lives — which ought to have been united by this 
time — were severed perhaps for years, and over all 
the uncertainty and the thought of separation hung 
the mystery of Mrs. Ogilvie’s half -finished message. 
The memory of her was clouded with the thought of 
how much she had suffered, and the thought intruded 
itself painfully that if they had but known more 
something more might have been done for her. The 
burden of a secret lies in the sense of loneliness which 
it brings. A unique experience, dissimilarity of 
thought or knowledge that is not shared by others 
201 


PETER AND JANE 


20 2 

makes a solitude with which no bodily isolation can 
be compared. No one knew — no one knew — 
That seemed the intolerable thing to the two per- 
sons left behind to wonder what the message could 
mean. 

“ I sometimes wish she had been a Catholic,” Peter 
once said, “ it might have been some sort of com- 
fort to her.” 

But Mrs. Ogilvie was a woman who could remain 
silent always, and perhaps it was the supreme ef- 
fort of having to break through a lifetime of reserve 
that in its added strain upon her heart had caused 
her death. 

The last few days that the lovers had together 
were spent in a very loyal and affectionate endeavour 
to make each other as happy as possible. They 
made no confessions of love to each other, nor ever 
dreamed of promising to be true because they never 
for a moment could admit the possibility of being 
anything else. And they did not even promise to 
write to each other, or to say their prayers at the 
same time every evening — the difficulty of calcula- 
ting what would be Greenwich time on a westward 
voyage put a stop to anything of that sort. Nor 
did they talk of remembering each other as they 
looked at the stars ; but they spoke of the future and 
of all the good things it was going to bring, and 
they even laughed sometimes over imaginary por- 
traits of the brother whom Peter was to seek, and 
they told each other ridiculous little tales of what 


PETER AND JANE 


203 


he would be like and what he would say and do. 
And Jane said that she really preferred a small house 
to a large one, and they planned how many hunters 
they would be able to keep on a limited income; and 
discussed such economy in details of furnishing as 
plain deal washstands instead of marble topped ones, 
and Persian rugs instead of carpets. 

One afternoon Jane gave Peter a gold cigarette 
case as a parting gift, with his name scrawled in her 
big handwriting across it, while Peter presented his 
fiancee with a very handsome diamond ring, and for- 
got altogether that perhaps he could not pay for it, 
and went back and told the jeweller so. The jeweller 
having know Captain Ogilvie all his life, and being 
aware that he had lately succeeded to an immense 
property thought the young man was joking, and 
said it did not matter in the least. 

Then came the day of parting when Jane said 
good-bye to Peter and Toffy and kissed them both, 
and then Toffy took a flying leap downstairs on the 
pretence of looking for a missing bag which he held 
in his hand, and the two people whom this story most 
concerns were left alone in the drawing-room. 

I should no more dream of intruding on these last 
few moments they had together than I should have 
dreamed of listening at the door had I been in the 
house at the time. I know that Peter was smiling 
oddly as he came out with a smile which had been 
conjured up for Jane’s benefit, but which had not, as 
he himself would have expressed it, “ quite come off.” 


20 4 


PETER AND JANE 


And I feel certain that on the other side of the door 
Jane was telling herself that she did not mean to 
give in or break down or do anything idiotic until 
Peter was gone. She walked back to the drawing- 
room when the hall door closed behind him, and waved 
her hand from the balcony, and smiled quite cheer- 
fully and steadily, while she held her pocket-handker- 
chief squeezed into a tight ball, and pinched it so 
hard that there were nail marks in her palm for 
some little time afterwards. Her cousin Florence 
brought her a glass of egg-flip presently and a bottle 
of smelling salts, and wanted Jane to lie down on 
the sofa and bathe her eyes with a little boracic and 
rose water. But Jane said she thought she would go 
for a walk instead, and when she came back she ate 
just the same healthy lunch as usual, to the discom- 
fiture of Florence and her aunt who decided that such 
conduct showed a lamentable want of feeling. 

It was a drizzly, wet, depressing day — just such 
a day as people always seem to choose on which to 
leave England — there was the usual routine of de- 
parture ; the embarcation, “ the special 99 from Water- 
loo, the crowd at the station, the plethora of bags, 
chair and hold-alls; the good-byes; the children held 
up to the carriage windows to wave hands; 4 6 the 
last looks,” and the tears stopped in their flow by 
anxiety about luggage and missing bags. Then 
Southampton and a sort of enforced cheerfulness and 
admiration of the ship. Those who had travelled 
down to see friends off adopted a tone which was a 


PETER AND JANE 


205 


sort of congratulatory intimation that having trav- 
elled so far safely they did not see why anyone should 
have much to fear for the rest of the voyage. There 
followed the luncheon on board — the noisy party 
who got a table to themselves, and laughed in an 
immoderate manner — cheerful friends who enjoyed 
the meal with brutal indifference to the heart-sinking 
thoughts which possessed those who feared it was 
going to be rough weather outside. These took a 
comprehensive look round the ship, and suggested 
to the ladies that they should begin unpacking “ be- 
fore she begins to roll.” Afterwards there were the 
very long-drawn-out farewells between those who 
were going ashore and those who remained behind 
on the ship. Bells were rung and friends were or- 
dered to leave long before it was necessary to do so. 
They waited about by the gangways in the mud and 
the rain with umbrellas over their heads, smiling 
feebly upwards at the row of people looking over 
the rails of the ship; too far away from each other 
to exchange remarks they occasionally waved 
a hand spasmodically, or a witty person shouted 
out a joke which only those who stood near him 
could hear, and which never reached the person for 
whom it was intended. 

At last the ship began to move slowly away, the 
hand waving became frantic, and the big vessel finally 
swung round and got out of dock. It was just then 
that many of the voyagers wished that they might 
have had a few minutes longer on that dismal scene 


206 


PETER AND JANE 


in the drizzling rain and those dear hand-waving, 
smiling or weeping figures on shore. But the en- 
gines had started their solemn beats, the pilot was 
on the bridge. The voyage had begun for good or 
ill, and the Lord watch over us all ! 

Nigel Christopherson, being a man of feeling, 
said to a Scotchman who leaned over the rails with 
him, watching a group of female figures dressed in 
black on the quay, 44 These good-byes are rather 
beastly, ain’t they?” 

To which the Scotchman replied, 44 They make no 
difference to me whatever,” and the remark Toffy 
thought was an extraordinary check to any emotional 
feeling. 

Jane got her first letter from Peter dated from 
Vigo, which peaceful port with its rows of white 
houses built along the shore, and the green hill with 
its ruined castle behind, is a haven where many sea- 
sick passengers would be ! 44 They had had a bit of 

a tossing,” Peter said, 44 in the Bay, and Toffy had 
been very seedy but was better. The fiddles had been 
on the tables the whole time, and very few of the 
passengers had appeared, so no information could be 
given about what sort of people were on board.” 
Peter went on to say that he rather hated ship-board 
life, and there was nothing to do, but perhaps later 
they might get up cricket or something. There was 
a woman on board whom he and Toffy wished at the 
bottom of the sea many a time. It seemed that she 
believed herself to be 46 the life and soul of the ship ” 


PETER AND JANE 


£07 


and the captain of the steamer told them that they 
always shipped one such passenger on every voyage 
— goodness only knew what would happen if there 
were two lives and two souls of the ship on board! 
She always wanted to “ get up ” something, and 
never felt sea-sick which was a great pity. She sang 
“ Home, Sweet Home ” in the evening, and had made 
several elderly passengers cry, and she made friends 
with everybody and was an awful bore. Still, per- 
haps, she meant well. The captain was a very good 
sort of fellow and full of yarns; his cabin was pro- 
fusely decorated with foxes’ masks and brushes, and 
a few of his admirers believed that when he was at 
home he hunted. He was a thorough good sailor 
and quite a decent sort of fellow to talk to. There 
was a very pretty girl going out to be married, and 
rather a nice couple whose name he had not yet dis- 
covered, and so on. It was a letter such as a school- 
boy might have written, in the way of writing and 
in the choice of words, but Jane treasured the ill- 
expressed sheets as maidens of a bygone age may 
have treasured their lovers’ shields, and although 
she left it lying about on her dressing-table after the 
manner of modern young women, it was none the 
less the dearest possession of her life until the next 
letter arrived. 

Toffy sat up in his bunk with a horribly bad 
headache and wrote a long letter to Mrs. Avory 
which he posted at Vigo ; and he wrote another letter 
not nearly so long, but which cost him much more 


208 


PETER AND JANE 


time to compose, and addressed it to Miss Kitty 
Sherard. And this he carefully tore into little pieces 
one night when the decks were dark and there was 
no moon overhead, and he watched the small white 
pieces of paper as they floated away into the black 
depths of the water, and then he walked up and down 
the deck until the small hours of the morning, when 
Peter — one of whose worst qualities was that he 
always “ fussed ” over people he cared about — ap- 
peared in pyjamas and overcoat and asked him 
sternly if he was trying to get another chill. 

At Lisbon the intelligent Scot who had effectually 
checked Sir Nigel Christopher son’s emotion at quit- 
ting his native land suggested to the two travellers 
that they should join him in a trip ashore. The 
three had made friends in the smoking-room, and 
in before-dinner tramps on deck, and Peter hailed 
Mr. Dunbar as a fellow countryman, and enjoyed 
his rugged accent and his amazing intelligence. He 
abounded in useful information about the country 
to which they were bound, gave statistics on all points, 
and teemed with information. He was an ardent and 
indefatigable sightseer, and never visited a building 
without seeming to investigate it. The most com- 
plicated currency of a foreign country never dis- 
turbed him for an instant and he would make little 
sums with extraordinary rapidity on the edge of any 
bill that was given to him. The difference of price 
as stated in Spanish coinage between a bottle of 
claret and a whiskey and soda might have puzzled 


PETER AND JANE 


209 


some people, but Dunbar worked it out to a frac- 
tion in a second of time and, without a moment’s 
hesitation, laid his own share of the expense on the 
luncheon table of the Braganza hotel. He spoke 
Spanish better than he spoke English, and thought 
he had got rid of his Scottish accent but he still said, 
“ I mind ” for “I remember,” and differentiated in 
the matter of pronouncing “ court ” and “ caught.” 
He hailed from Arbroath, and it was a treat to hear 
him pronounce the word. 

In the days that followed and in the monotony 
of shipboard life Dunbar, as he called himself with 
the final syllable heavily accentuated, proved to be 
by no means an unpleasant companion. His energy 
was tireless even on board ship, and perhaps only 
the lady who had established herself as the life-and- 
soul of the ship would equal him in the amount of 
occupations with which he filled up the uneventful 
days. It was only in the evenings or during his 
rapid walk before dinner that he ever had time for a 
chat and even the two pipes a day which he allowed 
himself were smoked with a sort of brisk energy and 
the pipe was laid away in a case in his pocket and 
the clasp securely snapped. 

At S. Vincent Peter wrote home again and felt a 
certain sense of insecurity at leaving letters on the 
rocky island. It was four o’clock in the morning 
when the ship got into port, and the sun was rising 
over the hills eastward, while to the west the bare, 
rugged, mountainous land was a solemn chilly grey 


210 


PETER AND JANE 


colour. The water was smooth and dark beneath 
the hills, but nearer the ship it was touched by the 
clear pale light of the rising sun. The hills rose 
jagged and sharp against the sky, without a scrap 
of verdure on them, but the kindly atmosphere turned 
those in the distance to a soft and tender blue. It 
smoothed away the rugged lines and effected the cruel- 
looking scars that seamed the sides of the hills, and 
covered them with a misty peace. It seemed to the 
young man as he looked at them that things became 
easier when viewed at a distance. He had suffered 
very considerably during the last few weeks of his 
life, and with him had suffered the girl whom he had 
loved and cared for always, and whom he would love 
and care for until the end of his life. Looking back 
at the distant misty hills on Cape Verde Island this 
voyage seemed to him in spite of all its horrible sense 
of separation to be something of a lull in the midst 
of quick-happening events. When first he left home 
he had been plagued with thoughts which he had 
fought with almost savage fierceness and he had 
wrestled to expel them from his mind; but that there 
could be any mystery at all in his mother’s life had 
necessarily awakened endless questionings in his mind. 

Why if this little brother of his had not died 
had he disappeared? And what was the reason for 
his disappearance? “He did not die — ” said the 
half-finished letter which his mother’s hand had traced 
— “ he did not die.” Once in the middle of the night 
as he said the wearisome sentence over to himself a 


PETER AND JANE 


211 


word had come suddenly, appeared before him in 
letters of flame, and Peter had turned away from it 
with a cry! A child who had been deprived of his 
life might be said in a sense not to have died, and 
there was the word of six letters in front of him in 
the dark. He turned on the electric light in his 
cabin, and for a moment he had half a mind to go 
in next door and wake Toffy. The burden of the 
suggestion was too awful for him to bear alone. 
“ He did not die — ” His mother’s mental state 
might not have been perfectly sound at the time of 
her husband’s death, and her preference for him, 
Peter, was a fact that had been remarked by all who 
knew her. Had she begun to write a confession to 
her son and stopped short in the middle? “Don’t 
hate me too much,” the letter said. Why should he 
hate her? He did not know. 

In the morning he was able to put the thought 
aside utterly, but he lived in dread of being beset 
by it at night time again. He began to “ funk ” go- 
ing to bed, and would sit up talking to Toffy till the 
small hours of the morning, or playing picquet 
with Dunbar. Men began to say that he “jawed” 
too much, and would not let them go to bed — 
little knowing how the poor fellow used to try to 
prolong a conversation so that he might not be left 
alone with a horrible fear always ready to pounce 
upon him when night fell, and only the thud of the 
engines playing some maddening tune broke the 
silence. 


212 


PETER AND JANE 


He tried with a baffling sense of impatience to make 
his own memory act, and to recall the days when he 
was not quite three years old. But the thing was 
an impossibility of course, and his brain refused to 
give up one picture of that time. 

It was only when the ship had reached S. Vincent 
that a certain amount of peace came to establish 
itself in his heart, and the large and beautiful con- 
solation of the sea began to make itself felt. The 
weather was calm and clear and the monotonous slap 
and swish of the water against the ship’s side was in 
itself productive of a sense of comforting. The 
company on board were all strangers to him, and 
helped to give him a feeling that he was starting 
anew in life. Also, he was on his way to do the best 
he could to find his brother if he was living, or to 
clear up the mystery of his death if he was dead. 
There was no horrid sense of having failed to do the 
best that was possible — he must find Edward 
Ogilvie — or find the grave where he lay ; and after 
that it would be time enough to think what would be 
the next thing to do. 

When the ship steamed away from S. Vincent in 
the evening, and the lighthouse on Bird Rock made 
a point of light in the gathering darkness the sight 
of land and of the hills had done Peter good, and 
had restored him to something normal and natural 
again. And as they steamed away into the dark- 
ness he turned to look back at the rugged island with 
the one point of light high up in the lighthouse, 


PETER AND JANE 


213 

and thought with a sense of comfort that it was like 
some lamp which a woman sets in the window to 
guide her husband home. With that came a deep 
sense of thankfulness for the love and the confidence 
which he and Jane had in each other; he knew that 
she would never fail him were he rich or poor, happy 
or unhappy, and that seemed the only thing in the 
world which really mattered. 

After leaving S. Vincent the weather became in- 
tensely hot ; the wind was with the ship, and there 
was not a breath of air to be had. The ladies on 
board began to feel the heat badly and lay about in 
their deck chairs looking white and miserable, and 
the men wore low collars which showed a gap of red 
neck behind, down which little streams of perspira- 
tion trickled. The hot moist wind took the curl out 
of everybody, and people in a restless way began 
to try and find something cool against which to lay 
their hands even for a moment. Even the cushions 
of the chairs began to be impossibly hot, and the only 
thing was to find a wicker lounge with a leg rest and 
sides on which arms and legs might be luxuriously 
spread. 

Dunbar never felt the heat at all; he had not an 
ounce of spare flesh on his body, and he always ate 
two chops and some curry for breakfast, because he 
said that if you were paying for a thing you might 
as well have it. He played in bull tournaments and 
had a way that was almost provoking of doing 
everything better than anybody else. His sharp- 


214 


PETER AND JANE 


featured face, long keen nose and eyes with a pair 
of intelligent-looking pince-nez fixed in front of 
them seemed to speak of a sleepless vigilance. 

Peter, having a very small amount of information 
on any subject at his command was immensely im- 
pressed by Mr. Dunbar, and thought he might make 
a fortune if he used his talents on the Music Hall 
stage for instance, when he believed he could with 
confidence answer any question that might be put to 
him. 

“ That is an extraordinary chap,” he said to Toffy. 
“ I wonder if he would be of any use to us in the 
way of finding out about my brother? ” But even- 
tually he decided that nothing ought to be done until 
they should see Sir John Falconer. 

At Pernambuco the heat was intense, and although 
there was a palm-fringed shore and a coral reef upon 
which the waves broke in clouds of silver spray, the 
physical discomfort of a breathless day in port was 
eloquently discussed to the exclusion of any ap- 
preciation of the beauties of nature. Some cata- 
marans flitted about like sea birds skimming the waves, 
and a few men of business went ashore while the rest 
of the passengers endured the heat on deck. At 
Bahia it was possible to buy some small bits of rather 
curious old silver, and Peter and Toffy, who were of 
the impecunious order of young men who always 
have a large amount of ready money in their pockets, 
bought specimens of it to send home to their friends. 
And Toffy thought that as he had never written to 


PETER AND JANE 


215 


Miss Sherard he might at least send her a little silver 
box, and bought one and sent it home, and that was 
the only one of the parcels which did not reach its 
destination safely. 

“We have had rather a disappointment here,” 
wrote Peter from Rio in one of his unliterary letters, 
“ because the yellow fever is so bad that we are not 
allowed to land. I don’t suppose you have any idea 
how tiresome a day in port is if one does not go 
ashore. The heat is really terrific, and under the 
awnings it feels exactly like sitting in an oven. The 
place itself is most awfully pretty. I wish I 
could describe it, but as you know I am not good 
at that sort of thing, and I cannot even get you 
any photographs. That Mr. Dunbar I told you 
about has been giving us all sorts of information 
about the place, and I wish I could remember half of 
it to tell you. We reach Buenos Ayres on the 20th, 
and then I hope to have more news.” 

In conclusion Peter wished he was at home again, 
and thought Toffy seemed rather down on his luck, 
and he remained Jane’s ever-loving Peter. 

“ I will tell you a strange thing about Rio,” be- 
gan Dunbar as he walked up and down the ship that 
evening. “ If you make your fortune in it you al- 
ways go back to England and say that by right you 
are a Castilian noble.” 

“ It would have been a very large fortune that 
would tempt me to live in this beastly climate,” said 
Peter who was in a grumbling mood. 


216 


PETER AND JANE 


“ I believe,” said Toffy, “ that with luck one could 
make a lot of money in Argentina. I have got a 
scheme in my head now which if it comes off should 
place me beyond the reach of want.” 

Dunbar referred to the Boon time and gave an 
exhaustive statement of the fortunes which had been 
made in that glorious epoch and had been lost after- 
wards. “ I have known men without capital make 
a hundred thousand in a few years,” he said, 
“ and when they lost it you simply could not find 
them.” 

“ People do seem to disappear in Argentina in a 
queer way,” said Peter with intention. (Both he 
and Toffy considered themselves masters of diplo- 
macy. ) “I know we had a gardener — one of the 
under men, and he had a brother who disappeared 
altogether out there, so this man went to find him, and 
was never heard of again.” 

“ The reason for that is not very far to seek,” 
said Dunbar. 4 6 The first thing you do when you 
come to Argentina is to leave off writing letters — 
at least if you are a camp man — You simply can’t 
abide the sight of pen and ink.” 

“ But there must be some means of tracing a chap 
who gets lost,” said Toffy ; “ he can’t disappear into 
space.” 

“ You’d wonder ! ” said the Scotchman laconically. 

“ Still you know,” persisted Peter, “ if a man’s 
alive at all someone must know his whereabouts.” 


PETER AND JANE 


217 


u Obsairve,” said Dunbar, “ it doesn’t require much 
imagination for a man to change his name as often 
as he likes, and I should like to know what police 
supervision there is over the Italian settlers, for in- 
stance, in some of the remote estancias ? Murderers 
are hardly ever caught out here, and murders used 
to be as common as a fight in a pulperia. Every 
man carries a knife, and if you go up country you 
will find that half the peons are nearly covered with 
scars; and if once in a way the knife goes too deep 
it’s just one of those things which cannot be helped, 
and the less said about it the better.” 

44 Again,” he went on, 44 suppose a man is mur- 
dered on his own estancia — a thing that used to be 
common enough — the peons are all in league and 
they generally have had a hand in it. Their master 
has been giving them 4 came flacca ’ (lean meat) to 
eat, and that is enough to upset the whole rickmatick 
of them.” 

44 1 suppose they are not likely to turn on a revo- 
lution for our benefit,” said Toffy in a tone of dis- 
appointment. 

44 1 haven’t got the fighting instinct in me,” said 
Dunbar literally. 44 Whenever there has been fight- 
ing where I have been I have always sat indoors until 
it was over.” 

Peter, with a desire to lead the subject back to 
the case of men who disappeared, turned in the deck 
chair where he was sitting enjoying a light breeze 


218 


PETER AND JANE 


which had sprung up after dark, and said tenta- 
tively, 44 1 can’t quite understand, you know, a man 
disappearing altogether and leaving no traces be- 
hind him.” 

44 1 shall never,” said Dunbar, 44 believe in the 
final disappearance or even in the death of anyone 
until I have seen the doctor’s certificate or the man’s 
corpse. Men have got a queer way of turning up, 
and even the sea may give up secrets when you least 
expect it.” 

44 Take the case of the Rosana he went on, 
44 and allow me to put the facts of the case before 
you. . . . The Rosana was a ship that used 
to do a good bit of trading on the coast, and there 
was a man on board of her whom I used to know, 
and who had been once a little too well known in 
Argentina. Well, this ship foundered with all hands 
on board, and was never heard of again, although 
two of her life-belts were picked up, and one or two 
pieces of deck gear.” 

44 A ship might founder at sea,” said Peter gravely, 
44 and not be heard of again, but I don’t believe you 
have told us half the story, Dunbar.” 

44 No, I haven’t,” said Dunbar. 

The electric lights on deck went out suddenly 
overhead, leaving only one burning; the breeze blew 
soft and cool, and six bells sounded sharply and em- 
phatically. 

44 1 wouldn’t,” said Dunbar, 44 give you the benefit 
of my speculation on the subject of the Rosana 


PETER AND JANE 


219 


were it not that E. W. Smith was on board. E. W. 
Smith couldn’t die; he wasn’t fit for it.” 

Dunbar looked doubtfully at his tobacco pouch, 
pinched it and then contemplated his pipe; Peter 
handed him a cigar case, and Dunbar accepted a 
cigar, and slipping it into an old envelope he de- 
posited it in his pocket. “ I don’t believe I should 
have time to smoke it through now,” he said, and he 
continued filling his pipe. 

“ I suppose you come across a good many queer 
stories, travelling about as much as you do,” said 
Toffy. 

Dunbar nodded without speaking. “ You’d won- 
der,” he said at last. 

He finished his pipe, knocked out the ashes and put 
it into a little case lined with red velvet, and stowed 
it in his pocket; he looked at his watch and an- 
nounced that there was still another half hour before 
he intended turning in. 

“ We might have the end of your story,” said 
Peter. 

“ A story is as good a way as any other of whiling 
away the evening,” admitted Dunbar. He was a 
grand talker according to his compatriots, and he 
chiefly loved the engineers’ mess room where he could 
sit by a table covered in oil-cloth and sip a little 
weak whiskey and water, and revert to his broadest 
Doric in company with some engineers from the 
Clyde. If timbers could speak the walls of the mess 
room might well have startled some of the first-class 


220 


PETER AND JANE 


passengers with their intimate knowledge of the say- 
ings and doings of the saloon passengers both at sea 
and ashore. 

44 The Rosana,” continued Dunbar, clearing his 
throat, 44 only carried one boat on her last journey. 
I happen to know that for a fact, but the Lord only 
knows the reason for it! Now this boat was found 
half burned lying on a lonely bit of coast a few 
weeks after the Rosana foundered. This is a 
thing which I may remark is not generally known; 
but I happen to have had ocular demonstration of 
it. The boat was a smart built one with her name 
in gold leaf on the bows. Tranter was the captain 
of the Rosana and he liked to have things nice. 
Now why should this boat have been found half 
burned on the coast, but with a piece of her name in 
gold leaf still partially visible ?” 

44 The boat probably drifted ashore,” said Peter, 
as if he was answering a question in a history class. 

Dunbar hardly seemed to hear him, and went on 
with hardly a moment’s interruption. 44 1 am a stu- 
dent,” he said, 44 of the deductive method of reason- 
ing, and I begin with the a priori assumption that 
E. W. Smith could not die. I should hold the same 
belief even if I believed in Purgatory.” (Dunbar 
pronounced the word with an incalculable number of 
Rs in it, and it came from his throat like the rattle of 
musketry. ) 44 Presuming,” he went on, 44 that the 

Rosana foundered, was E. W. Smith the man to 
go down in her, or was he not ? ” 


PETER AND JANE 


221 


Mr. Dunbar’s eyeglasses were chained to his coat 
with a little gold chain ; if this precaution had not 
been taken there were many persons who believed that 
they might have started from his head with alert- 
ness and energy. 

“ I suppose some of them took to the boat,” said 
Toffy; “in a case of that sort it is a matter of 
sanve qui pent.” 

“ The whole crew would have swamped the boat,” 
said Dunbar. He had a most unsatisfactory method 
of telling stories. 

“ Consequently — ” said Peter. 

“ Consequently,” said Dunbar, “ I’m just biding 
my time, and I’ll tell you more when there is more to 
tell.” 

“ It is a queer story,” said Peter. 

“ It’s queerer than you think ! ” said Dunbar. 

“ You can’t believe,” said the other, “ that this 
man, Smith, went off in the boat by himself? ” 

“ I don’t,” said Dunbar, “ for E. W. Smith could 
not row, and with all his sea-going he was a clerk 
to his finger tips.” 

“ So then,” said Peter, “ he must have had ac- 
complices, and accomplices always tell tales.” 

“ There’s one very certain way of silencing men,” 
said the Scotchman. 

Peter rose abruptly from his chair and threw his 
cigar end out over the water. 

“ It’s a beastly suggestion,” he said briefly when 
he came back; his face was white, and he found him- 


222 


PETER AND JANE 


self hoping to God that this tale of Dunbar’s would 
not bring back to him those horrid nights he had had 
at the beginning of the voyage. 

44 Tranter was the captain of the boat,” said Dun- 
bar, 44 and Tranter was about the worst sort of 
coward you are likely to meet this side of Jordan. 
E. W. Smith, on the other hand, never lost his head.” 

The story seemed finished, and Toffy got up and 
stretched himself lazily, and said he was going to 
turn in, but Peter still sat where he was in his deck 
chair. 

44 There might be a hundred different endings to 
your tale, Dunbar,” he said ; 44 each one as likely as 
the other. The boat, for instance, might have cap- 
sized, with too many men crowded into her, and have 
drifted ashore and been burned accidentally or other- 
wise by the people who found her. Or the crew and 
captain of the Rosana may never have taken to the 
boat at all, and she may have foundered with all 
hands (as you say the newspaper reports had it at 
the time) ; or the Rosana may be sailing in an- 
other part of the world with her villainous captain 
and E. W. Smith and no end of swag on board. Or 
both men again may be sleeping very peacefully at 
the bottom of the sea at this moment; that after all 
seems to me the most likely ending to them. Of 
course,” he finished, 44 1 don’t know what grounds you 
may have for making another suggestion about their 
probable fate.” 

Dunbar looked at him keenly for a moment. 44 1 


PETER AND JANE 


223 


would not have made the suggestion,” he said quietly, 
“ only you see since the wreck of the Rosana I 
have seen E. W. Smith or his ghost, and that is why 
I do not believe in the final disappearance of a man 
till I have set eyes upon his corpse.” 


CHAPTER XII 


When Peter got Jane’s first letter he was at the 
estancia Las Lomas, and he carried the letter out of 
doors and read it sitting on a cow’s skull, bleached 
and white, that lay conveniently near the door. He 
had begun to think that the Royal Mail Packet 
Service was run for the sole purpose of carrying 
correspondence between him and Jane Erskine, and 
he felt pleased with its punctuality in delivering his 
letters. 

Jane said first that she missed Peter more than she 
could possibly say; that it was quite different from 
the time when he was in South Africa, and much 
worse. She had been down staying with Miss Abing- 
don for a few days and had been over to Bowshott. 
The dogs and such horses as were left in the stable 
were all well. Mrs. Avory and her little girl were 
now established at the Vicarage, and Mrs. Avory was 
enrolled amongst the most fervent of Canon Wrot- 
tesley’s admirers. The Vicarage seemed to be a sort 
of haven to her after a good deal of tossing about in 
the world, and it seemed possible that she would not 
go back to London again, or try to make blouses, 
but would settle down in a little cottage at Culver- 
sham. Poor dear Mrs. Wrottesley was not at all 
well, and there was some talk of her going abroad in 
the spring. Mr. Lawrence was as gossiping and as 


PETER AND JANE 


useful as ever. He went up to London twice a week, 
and did everybody’s shopping with the most mar- 
vellous intelligence, and brought down fish in bags 
in the evening, and small brown paper parcels and 
lists of the commissions which he had done, with the 
prices affixed to each of them. Miss Abingdon 
seemed rather moped, and Jane hoped that she would 
come up to London for a time, and take a flat some- 
where near her uncle. And Kitty Sherard had been 
down several times and had done Aunt Mary a world 
of good. Kitty had a pair of new tandem ponies, 
and the wheels of her dog-cart were higher, and 
Kitty’s waist was smaller than it had ever been be- 
fore, and she was a great dear, and there was no one 
in the world like her. Florence and her Aunt 
Erskine were very busy and as fond of tea parties 
as ever, and they went to a great many Drawing- 
room Meetings, and seemed to enjoy themselves in 
their own way ; and her uncle, the General, was being 
perfectly adorable; he rode with her in the Park 
in the mornings and was altogether angelic. The 
letter covered several sheets, and it had cost fivepence 
in stamps to convey it to the little house where Peter 
received it that evening. He looked at the envelope 
and thought that it was wonderful that it had reached 
him safely, and blessed Jane and read the letter over 
again. Then he rose from his seat — for the cow’s 
skull was an uneasy resting place — and looked 
round him at the unfamiliar scene where he found 
himself. The letter which he had just read had 


226 


PETER AND JANE 


seemed to take him back to England again, and had 
brought the village of Culversham and his own home 
so vividly before his eyes that it made the present 
surroundings appear unreal to him. 

“ It feels a bit queer, being here,” he said to him- 
self, gazing round him as he spoke. It was the 
evening of a hot day, and there was a flame of crim- 
son over to westward, where a few minutes ago 
the sun had sunk through great bars of flame dying 
grandly like a warrior. All round him was a vast 
solitary land, but nearer the estancia were pleasant 
homely sights and sounds. A cart yoked with five 
horses abreast stood by the galpon; a flock of geese 
walked with disdainful important gait across the 
potrero, and the viscashos popped in and out of their 
holes, with busy importance like children keeping 
house. The farm horses turned out for the night 
cropped the short grass near where he stood. Peons, 
their day’s work over, loitered in the patio, and the 
major domo’s children rode by — all three of them 
on one horse, their arms around each other’s waists. 
The little estancia house stood red-roofed and home- 
like with green paraiso trees about it. In the veran- 
dah Toffy was stretched in a hammock, a pile of 
letters and newspapers from home beside him; Hop- 
wood appeared round the corner carrying cans of 
water for baths; while Ross, their host, in a dress as 
nearly as possible resembling that of a gaucho, was 
that moment disappearing indoors to make the even- 
ing cocktail. He came to the door presently and 


PETER AND JANE 


m 

shouted to the two men to come in, and pointed out 
to them — as he had pointed out every evening since 
they had arrived — his own exceeding skill in swiz- 
zling. 

It was a curious coincidence that had led Peter and 
Christopherson to Las Lomas. When they reached 
Buenos Ayres a very pleasant and unexpected meet- 
ing occurred, for Peter met Chance, a man who had 
been with him at Eton, on his way down the river 
to go home. Chance had lost his young wife a little 
while before, and was returning to England to see 
what the voyage and a change would do to cure him 
of an almost overwhelming grief, and his partner, 
Ross, was left behind to look after the estancia. 
Ross was on board the boat also, and proved an 
excellent fellow, and Chance suggested that Ogilvie 
and Christopherson should return to Las Lomas with 
him and see something of the life in Argentina, and 
stay as long as they could keep Ross company. 

The invitation was accepted without hesitation, 
and it seemed that the two travellers were in luck’s 
way. The estancia was a snug little place amply 
watered by a river and lying some miles above the 
last port where the small river steamer called. This 
port was nearer the estancia than the railway station 
at Taco, and the last stage of the journey, therefore, 
was made by steamer. The river was a wide, shallow 
stream, very difficult of navigation. It was nearly 
ten miles broad in some parts, while at its deepest it 
never gave soundings of more than five fathoms of 


228 


PETER AND JANE 


water. In dry weather it was possible in some places 
to drive a cart across it, while in others the current 
was quick and dangerous. It was full of shallows 
and sandbanks, and for some miles the course of the 
little steamer was marked out by boughs of trees 
stuck into its muddy bottom. 

Chance sniffed when he heard that the journey 
was to be made in one of the new line of steamers 
owned by Purvis, and said, “ I wish you joy of your 
journey! You know the sort of fellow we used to 
call 4 sneak-thief ’ at Eton? Well, that is what Purvis 
is! And he has bought Oldfield’s estancia, which is 
next to mine, so I shall have him as a neighbour in 
future.” 

Ross, however, pleaded that Purvis was not a bad 
sort of chap. For one thing, he had opened up the 
river traffic in a way that was a great convenience 
to everybody ; and secondly, you really could not be 
hard on a man who looked such a worm as Purvis 
did! 

Peter, with his dangerous habit of judging every- 
body charitably, was rather inclined to like the pale- 
faced man who made the voyage with them on the 
following day. Purvis was a gentle-mannered, 
nervous-looking individual, with weak, pale-blue eyes 
that watered incessantly ; and he had a curious habit — 
unlike everyone else in Argentina — of dressing like 
a city clerk. All the men in camp wore breeches and 
wide, felt hats and polo boots ; but Purvis was habit- 
ually dressed in dark tweed clothes and a bowler hat. 


PETER AND JANE 


229 


Even on the steamer and in the heat of the mid-day 
sun he wore the same costume, and walked up and 
down the deck with an umbrella held over his head. 
He spoke half a dozen languages, but seemed to 
think in Spanish, for whenever he spoke quickly or 
impulsively that was nearly always the tongue which 
he used. 

The crew of the steamer was composed of a queer 
mixture of elements, and whatever their moral quali- 
ties may have been, their appearance would not have 
been altogether reassuring to a man, for instance, 
travelling with a good many valuables about him. 
There was Grant, the engineer — a Scotchman who 
never spoke at all and who loved his engines with a 
personal love; Pedro, a man with big, melancholy 
eyes, half Basque and half Italian; an old Belgian 
stoker, and a nigger from South Carolina; and, 
lastly, John Lewis, or Black John, as he was always 
called, who came from a Danish West Indian Island 
and who said he was a Scotchman and had been a 
cabinet-maker in Glasgow. 

The little steamer in itself was not uncomfortable. 
She was a flat-bottomed river boat and carried cargoes 
of hides and other Saladero produce. There were 
some live pigs with immense tusks, and some tasajo 
in the hold, and a raft and pipes of tallow, and a 
hawser stowed behind. The boat was supposed to 
draw two feet of water, but in her present overloaded 
state she dragged heavily against the mud in the 
shallower parts of the river. 


230 


PETER AND JANE 


The three Englishmen on board thoroughly en- 
joyed the trip in spite of the amazingly bad food 
which they ate, and the smell of pigs and of hides. 
The vegetation on the banks of the river was beau- 
tiful in the extreme, and the smells of the boat were 
often counteracted by the exquisite scents which were 
wafted to them from the shore. Willows and mimosa 
trees lined the banks, and air plants and all sorts of 
creepers gave almost a tropical appearance to the 
low woods through which the river ran. 

Purvis proved himself an agreeable companion in 
his timid, mild way; and he pointed out his own 
estancia house by the river bank and invited Captain 
Ogilvie and Sir Nigel Christopherson to come and 
stay with him some day. The boat arrived at the 
little port of La Dorada at two o’clock in the morn- 
ing, and moonlight and dawnlight made a most mys- 
terious and beautiful light over the solitary country. 
There was a sort of vast stillness over the land, as 
the boat glided to her moorings in the early morn- 
ing. Nothing could be heard but the chirping of a 
bicho, or the solitary neighing of one of the horses 
that awaited them by the little quay. The stars 
shone and twinkled overhead, and the air was cool 
and clear and marvellously still. Purvis’s three pas- 
sengers had not troubled to turn in, but had lain on 
the deck and leaned against the bales of wool and 
slept in that fashion very comfortably until Black 
John woke them up and told them it was time to 
disembark. They mounted their horses and their 


PETER AND JANE 


231 


luggage was put on a rough cart, and they rode off 
in the mysterious dawn, and across the great silent 
country to the little estancia house amongst the 
paraiso trees. 

Ross was a capital host, and the only possible en- 
tertainment he could offer his guests being work upon 
the estancia, he gave them plenty of it ; and the out- 
of-door life, in spite of the heat, was full of interest 
and touched with a sense of freedom and hardness. 

Christopherson was a man who could accommodate 
himself to every possible change of circumstances; 
the life suited him, and he had seldom been in better 
health than in Argentina until, a week ago, when 
unluckily he got a touch of fever. He adopted 
Spanish phrases and spoke them glibly, threw the 
lasso with the air of a strong man, and tried to pick 
out a particular head of stock from the moving mass 
in the corral ; he chatted with the peons, hunted wild 
mares in the monta and drank cocktails as to the 
manner bom. 

The days passed pleasantly enough. Sir John 
Falconer, whom Peter had seen at Buenos Ayres had 
advised that no amateur detective work should be 
attempted for the present; but that Peter and Sir 
Nigel should remain with Ross until proper official 
enquiries could be made into the case. There was 
nothing for it but to remain inactive for the present, 
though the two men had their own ideas about gather- 
ing information quietly where they could, and Ross 
supported them in this view. “ It isn’t as if we were 


PETER AND JANE 


232 

in England,” he said. “ The law out here is a 
clumsy mover, and you may have to wait months 
before you hear anything. Keep your eyes and 
your ears open ; travel about the country a little and 
get into conversation with as many people as pos- 
sible. News in Argentina is not carried by the news- 
papers, but by the men who ride from place to place 
and more particularly by the scamps, who never have 
a fixed address for very long.” A journey to Col- 
orado was planned as soon as Toffy should be 
stronger, and meanwhile things were at a standstill, 
for the only neighbours at the estancia were the 
Murrays on one side, who seldom left their own house 
even to make a trip to Buenos Ayres — old-fashioned 
settlers who had made a home of their estate; and 
Purvis on the other hand, who was a new arrival. 
“ But we might cultivate Purvis, I think,” said Ross. 
“ Depend upon it, he hears more gossip on board 
his boat than is ever heard anywhere else in the coun- 
try. Chance detests him, but he may be useful.” 

Purvis came to Las Lomas and was cordially 
greeted by the three men on the estancia. He was 
an intelligent talker on the rare occasions when he 
talked at any length; but for the most part he con- 
tented himself with regretting the existing state of 
commerce in South America, and asking naive ques- 
tions which exposed his ignorance on many subjects. 
The conversation of the three public school men who 
knew the world of London and still talked its lan- 
guage and discussed its news; who knew, moreover, 


PETER AND JANE 


their friends’ stories and jokes and had stayed in a 
dozen country houses together, was widely different 
from Mr. Purvis’s mildly agreeable string of remarks. 
And the particular sort of courtesy which they showed! 
him would not have been accorded to a man of their 
own world. 

Probably the best thing about him was his little 
boy Jim, whom he looked after with a woman’s care- 
fulness. No one quite knew who the child was ; report 
had it that Purvis had adopted him, but they were 
always spoken of as father and son. The two had 
ridden over to Las Lomas very early to-day, and the 
boy having been sent into the house to rest and get 
cool, Purvis crossed the bare little garden and passed 
the stout rough paling of the corral, and went 
towards the group of paraiso trees where Peter was 
sitting. He wore his habitual air of the shop man — 
the townsman, if you will — and he had the appear- 
ance of a very delicate, overworked city clerk. He 
walked about in a noiseless, creeply fashion, which 
Peter disliked. It was always necessary to remember 
that he suffered horribly from bad health, poor beast, 
and that probably a man who was so good to his 
little boy was not on the whole a bad sort. Jim had 
begun to be something of a companion to Toffy since 
he had been ill with fever and lay on the sofa, formed 
of wicker work covered with a guanaco rug, reading 
an erudite treatise on the Book of Job. 

“ Ross is not at home, I suppose,” said Purvis, 
sitting down beside Peter in the shade of the paraiso 


234 


PETER AND JANE 


trees, and removing his bowler hat. The hat always 
left a painful-looking red line on Mr. Purvis’s fore- 
head, and it was removed whenever he sat down. The 
surprising thing was that he should actually have 
worn such an uncomfortable head gear. 

“ Oh, good morning, Purvis,” said Peter off-hand. 
“ No, Ross is not about, I think. Did you want 
him?” 

No, Mr. Purvis would not trouble Ross ; it really 
did not matter ; it was nothing. Probably Mr. 
Purvis did not want to see Ross and had no business 
with him, and wanted to see someone else. It was 
one of the wretched things about the man that his 
conversation was nearly always ambiguous, and that 
he never asked straightforwardly for anything he 
wanted. He really was rather a worm when you 
came to think of it. And yet, look what a head the 
man had for business! He had made, according to 
his own showing, one immense fortune out of noth- 
ing at all in the Boon time and had lost it when 
the Slump came. Now he seemed on the way to 
make a fortune again. His estancia lay on the river 
bank, and he was independent of the heart-breaking 
and only half-established system of railway service 
in Argentina for the conveyance of his alfalfa and 
wheat. There must be an immense amount of grit 
in the man after all. Perhaps his bad health and 
his pathetically white appearance, and the perpetual 
tear in his pale-blue eyes had a good deal to do with 
making one think that he was a worm. Probably, 


PETER AND JANE 


235 


Peter used to think, he was a far cleverer chap than 
he himself, or Toffy or Ross, or indeed the whole 
lot of them put together. None of them could make 
a fortune, Peter was perfectly sure of that. Very 
few of them could earn their daily bread — except 
by shoving things about — and using their arms and 
legs. They had not a head between them ; but Purvis 
could go through a business paper, a prospectus or 
a title deed with one glance from his watery blue 
eye; and he knew everyone’s private history, and 
the whole of their business affairs. Sometimes it 
almost seemed as if he knew too much, but there was 
not a great deal to talk about in camp except the 
gossip of the place and the price of cattle. 

Purvis sat down, wiped his pale forehead with the 
band of red across it, and returned his handkerchief 
to the pocket of his tweed coat ; he produced a small 
bottle of tabloids and, shaking a couple of them 
into the palm of his hand, he proceeded to swallow 
them with a backward throw of his head. The tak- 
ing of tabloids was Mr. Purvis’s only personal in- 
dulgence. He had been recommended them for his 
nerves, and he had swallowed so many that had they 
not been perfectly innocuous he must have died long 
ago. 

Peter stowed a letter which he was reading for the 
tenth or twelfth time into his pocket, and supposed, 
as Purvis did not seem inclined to move off, that he 
had better submit to having a talk with him. 

“ I am very much interested,” he said, “ in the 


236 


PETER AND JANE 


story you told me the other day about the child who 
disappeared out here in Argentina some twenty-five 
years ago, and who has not been heard of again.” 

“Yes,” assented Peter; “it is an odd tale.” 

“ I have lived in many parts of Argentina,” said 
Purvis, wiping a tear out of his weak eyes, “ and 
one hears a good deal of gossip amongst all classes 
of people, more particularly, I should say, amongst 
that class with whom you and our friend, Mr. Ross, 
are not intimately acquainted. Your story reminded 
me somewhat of a case which I once heard of when 
I was in business in Rosario many years ago.” 

“What did you hear?” said Peter. He spoke 
quickly and turned his eyes with their look of hon- 
esty in them on the man beside him. 

“ First of all,” said Purvis, “ I should have to 
know whether the relations of this child — a boy, I 
believe you said it was — are taking any steps to 
find it. Enquiries, especially if conducted with dis- 
cretion, are apt to entail a good deal of expense, 
and of course — ” he paused and spread out his 
hands. 

“ Of course all expenses would be paid,” said Peter 
shortly. 

“ It will require immense patience to find any 
traces of an unknown child who came out here 
twenty-five years ago,” said Purvis. 

“ I always thought it was rather hopeless,” said 
Peter, “ but it seemed the right thing to do.” 

“ It seemed the right thing to do,” said Mr. Purvis, 


PETER AND JANE 


237 


like an echo. He always appeared to speak without 
intention, and even when he put on airs of gravity 
there was a certain vacant expression about his lack- 
lustre, weak eyes. He seldom listened with any sort 
of intelligence to what was said to him, and there 
was nothing to give one the impression that he was 
in any way astute. 

“ I should like very much if you could tell me 
anything about the man’s childhood,” said Purvis. 
“ It is so important to know every detail that could 
possibly furnish us with a clue.” 

“ I never even saw a picture of him,” said Peter. 

“ It’s very sad indeed,” said Mr. Purvis, “ when a 
near relative disappears in this way.” 

“ Yes,” said Peter briefly, “ it is rather annoy- 
ing.” 

“ Old servants, for instance, are proverbial for 
their long memories and might furnish a clue,” said 
Purvis. 

“ The lawyers,” said Peter, “ have followed every 
possible clue that could lead to information about 
the child, but without any result whatever.” 

“ Singular,” said Purvis, with one of his vacant 
glances. 

“ Yes,” assented Peter. “ I suppose there are very 
few cases in which a man has disappeared so com- 
pletely, and left no trace behind him.” 

“ And the property which is at stake is a very 
large one, I understood you to say,” said Purvis. 

“ Yes,” assented Peter; “ it is a big place.” 


238 


PETER AND JANE 


And then he wondered if he had been fool enough 
to give away the intelligence that an immense prop- 
erty and a fortune awaited the missing heir. Pie 
frowned for a moment, and then said with profound 
cunning, 44 1 don’t imagine he has left me anything 
if he is dead.” 

44 1 should certainly know it if any considerable 
property had been willed away about here,” said 
Purvis quietly ; 44 and you see our richest men in 
camp have really not much else except landed prop- 
erty to leave. In Buenos Ayres and Rosario, too, 
a man of importance in the town dying and having 
money, could easily be traced.” 

44 Well, I haven’t exactly expectations from him,” 
said Peter, feeling that he was getting into a muddle. 
44 The fact is,” he said cordially, 44 1 shall be inter- 
ested to hear news of the man if you can obtain any 
for me.” 

So far he had always regarded his brother’s exist- 
ence as some remote and hardly possible contingency. 
Now he began to see plainly that he might very pos- 
sibly be alive, and not only so, but that his where- 
abouts could be traced. The sudden realisation of 
these possibilities staggered him for a moment; but 
he went on steadily: 44 1 want the man found, and I 
shall spare no trouble nor expense in finding him. 
Even if he is dead, I do not mind telling you that 
any definite information would be welcome to me, 
and if he is alive, my object is to find him as soon 
as possible.” 


PETER AND JANE 


Purvis looked jaded and white with the heat, and 
the effort of putting investigations on foot seemed 
almost a cruel burden to lay upon the delicate man. 
“ I will see,” he said in his feeble way, “ if I can 
do anything to find out more about the child whom 
I remember in Rosario; but allow me to work the 
thing quietly and in my own way. It may be a 
mare’s nest, after all.” 

Toffy appeared at the wire door of the corridor, 
and shouted to them that breakfast was ready, and 
Peter and Mr. Purvis strolled towards the house. It 
was an absurdly small dwelling, one storey high, but 
with a number of low buildings round it, covering 
a considerable amount of ground. And withal it 
was a trim little place which a man had furnished 
and fitted and made ready for his bride, and the poor 
little garden — now devoid of flowers — was another 
evidence that care had been taken with it. The din- 
ing-room was a small white-washed hall hung with 
guns and rifles and furnished with a table, half a 
dozen wooden chairs and a deal cupboard which held 
some bottles of the rough red wine of the country. 
The room next to it, called by courtesy the drawing- 
room, had been built for Mrs. Chance when the rest 
of the house had been made ready for her, and it 
still bore the impress of a lady’s taste upon it. There 
was a shelf running round the room furnished with 
photographs, now rather faded, and there was the 
sofa, covered with the guanaco rug, upon which 
Toffy had lain since he had had fever. In one cor- 


240 


PETER AND JANE 


ner of the room there was a piano, which had been 
some sort of amusement to him since he had been 
laid up, and upon it was a copy of “ Hymns Ancient 
and Modern,” with music; for Mrs. Chance had been 
a parson’s daughter at home, and she used to play to 
Chance and sing very sweetly on Sunday evenings. 
Toffy could only pick out the top notes of the airs 
with one finger, and whistle an accompaniment to 
them, but this very small musical performance was 
some sort of solace to him during the hours which, 
since his attack of illness, he spent alone. 

The roughly-built fireplace in the room was filled 
with logs, and a guitar always stood on a cretonne- 
covered box close by. It was on this little cretonne- 
covered box that Mrs. Chance used to sit and play 
the guitar which Chance had purchased for her, and 
one of the peons had taught her to thrum Spanish 
airs upon it. It had been a pleasure to her during 
the brief year that she had spent in the estancia house 
with its red roof and simple rooms, and the corridor 
that had been enclosed with wire netting for her. 
It was she who had carved the blotter and paper knife 
on the writing table and had made cretonne covers 
for the chairs. She had not finished half that she 
had meant to do before there had come a wonderful 
journey to Buenos Ayres, and she had made a com- 
plete list of all the things that were to be done when 
she should return. But little Mrs. Chance and her 
baby lie buried in the cemetery at Buenos Ayres, 
and the estancia house always had an unfinished look 


PETER AND JANE 


241 


about it, for Chance liked to have it just as she had 
left it. 

Three or four bedrooms not over-furnished opened 
out of the living room of the house, and the corridor 
with its wire netting made a cool resting-place for 
the wayfaring men who often rode up to the house 
at sundown and for whose tired limbs a “ catre ” and 
a rug was sufficient for a night of dreamless slumber. 

The men who sat round the small table of the hall 
which served as a dining-room were most of them 
sufficiently new to the life to find it an interest and 
pleasure. Their brown boots still spoke of St. 
James’s Street, in spite of the strange designs which 
the wearers of them considered suitable for comfort 
and convenience. None of them wore coats, and if 
their breeches were of rough material their cut was 
unmistakable, and the texture of their shirts alone 
bespoke the man out from home. Ross, it is true, 
had decided for an Argentina style of dress; he wore 
a beard and his hands were hard from the strain of 
the lasso. But his old brown polo boots which had 
been worn at Hurlinghame and Banelagh were of 
a shapelier cut than is generally seen in a corral. 

At present, and in spite of many drawbacks, the 
three young men were enjoying the return to primi- 
tive conditions of life. To be uncivilised has no 
doubt considerable charm when the blood is young 
and muscles are strong and wiry. Peter was for get- 
ting some of his own sheep out here, and a few good 
horses to improve the breed, and Toffy had schemes 


242 


PETER AND JANE 


for an immense shipping industry which would carry 
cattle at so low a rate to England that beef might 
be sold there at fourpence a pound which, as he 
remarked, would benefit all classes. Ross gave his 
two years’ experience with a weight of wisdom. He 
was still at that enviable state of life when to sleep 
out on the ground with one’s head on a saddle is 
found preferable to a spring mattress and sheets. 
He was a man who took long journeys and swam 
rivers with his clothes on his head, and would have 
liked the sensation of fatigue described to him. 
Peter probably would always look like a cavalry 
officer, and would not have been easily mistaken for 
anything else, even if he had worn a garment of 
skins laced together with wire. He was burned a 
deep brown, some shades deeper than the colour of 
his moustache and his eyebrows, and his eyes now 
had a certain fixed gravity in them which did not 
alter even when he laughed. He spent an immense 
amount of energy on the estancia, and did a better 
day’s work than anyone on it. Toffy adopted the 
airs of a strong man, and before his attack of fever 
he had spent most of his time in working amongst 
the cattle. He was looking fagged now, and was 
discussing gravely the laundry question in South 
America, and the difficulty of getting a boiled shirt 
to wear. “ I suppose it really does cleanse one’s 
linen,” he said, “ to bang it with a stone in the river, 
but the appearance of greyness makes one doubtful.” 

“ You ought to make friends with Juan Lara’s 


PETER AND JANE 


243 


wife,” said Ross. 44 1 believe that Lara on purely 
economical grounds wears our shirts a week or two 
before he hands them over to his wife to wash; still 
she can wash ! ” 

44 You had much better try the gaucho’s plan,” 
said Peter, 44 and wear three shirts, and when the top 
one gets dirty disclose the next one to view.” 

44 Mr. Purvis wears a 4 dickey,’ ” said Ross, with 
a glance towards the door. It was a curious thing 
about Purvis and one which none of the men had 
allowed to themselves for a moment, that if anything 
of a private nature was talked about, there was an 
undefined feeling in everyone’s mind that he might 
be listening outside. 

44 He is coming in to breakfast immediately,” said 
Peter. 

44 If it was a matter of real necessity,” said Ross, 
44 1 believe I could endure the loss of Purvis ; he is 
a bore sometimes, and tears and tabloids combined 
are really very depressing.” 

44 Poor beast,” said Toffy, charitably. 

44 1 cannot make out,” said Ross, 44 what the trouble 
is at present on his estancia. I have only heard some 
native gossip, and I don’t know what it is all about, 
but there seems to be an idea that Purvis is lying 
on the top of a mine.” 

The door opened and Purvis entered in his usual 
quiet way. His step was always light, for he was 
a lightly-built, delicate man, who probably walked 
very little and with an utter lack of energy. He 


244 


PETER AND JANE 


blinked in the garish light of the whitewashed room 
he had just entered and sitting down at the break- 
fast table, he drew his little boy towards him and 
sat him on a chair, and with womanly deftness and a 
caressing touch fastened a dinner napkin round his 
neck. He helped the child to something that was 
on the table, and then wondered what he himself 
could eat. He suffered agonies from indigestion, 
and one of his few grievances was that no one really 
knew what he meant by weak tea — there must be 
just a spoonful to colour it, and the cup must be 
filled up with milk and hot water. As a guest he 
was very little trouble; he brought a small bag with 
him when he travelled, which seemed to be filled for 
the most part with papers. His dark clothes were 
always neatly brushed and folded by himself, and 
he generally spent his days riding to and f ro between 
the house and the nearest telegraph office. 

“ You should take a holiday while you are here,” 
said Peter, seeing Purvis sitting down immediately 
after breakfast to write one of his interminable tele- 
grams ; 46 it would do you good.” 

44 It’s my nerves,” said Purvis hopelessly. 

Ross laughed and said : 44 If I lived on weak tea 
and tabloids, as you do, Purvis, I should be in my 
grave in ten days.” 

44 1 think,” said Purvis, 44 that these new phos- 
pherine things are doing me some good. But I sleep 
so little now, I don’t suppose there is an hour of the 


PETER AND JANE 245 

night when I am so sound asleep that a whisper would 
not wake me. 

44 It takes a good loud gong,” said Ross, 44 to make 
me even realise that I am in bed.” 

44 At home,” said Peter, 44 1 once had an alarm clock 
fixed above my bed to wake me, and at last I told the 
man who sold it to me that it never struck ; and really 
I thought it did not until he showed me that it worked 
all right.” 

44 There is a beastly bell for the out-door servants 
at Hulworth,” said Toffy, 44 which is beside my win- 
dow and — ” 

44 1 know that bell,” said Peter ; 44 1 tie it up reg- 
ularly every time I am at Hulworth.” 

44 Have you also got a country seat? ” asked Mr. 
Purvis. 

44 Oh, Hulworth is a mouldy old barrack,” replied 
Toffy; 44 4 country seat 9 is too fine a name for it.” 

44 But is it quite near Bowshott? ” persisted Purvis. 

44 No, it’s nine miles off,” said Peter, 44 unless you 
ride across country.” 

Later in the afternoon when he and Toffy and 
Purvis strolled up and down on the brittle, short 
grass in front of the house, Purvis referred to the 
matter of their morning’s conversation. 44 Surely,” 
he said, 44 amongst the old people in the village where 
this child first lived would be the likeliest place to 
glean intelligence of his whereabouts.” 

44 It is more than likely that he died,” said Toffy 


246 


PETER AND JANE 


quickly; he could never bear the thought of Peter 
being disinherited, and he particularly disliked the 
subject when Purvis discussed it. 

“ You mean he must have died in Argentina?” 
said Purvis. 

“ Yes,” said Peter, “ there is no doubt now that 
he died out here twenty-five years ago. That fact 
was established by the lawyers before I left home.” 

“ Would anyone have any interest in concealing 
the fact of his whereabouts?” pursued Mr. Purvis. 
“ Or could anyone’s silence have been purchased on 
such a sub j ect ? ” He paused for a moment and 
then said in his apologetic manner: “ Believe me, I 
do not ask from idle curiosity, but in order that I 
may pursue my investigations still farther. The 
smallest clue from home might be invaluable to us 
at this moment.” 

“ You should have that clue, if I could give it,” 
said Peter gravely. 

“ I wish,” he said to Ross that evening, as they 
sat together in the corridor, “ that I had anyone else 
to help me in this affair except Purvis.” 

Ross knew the whole story and was as trustworthy 
and straightforward a man as ever breathed. “ I 
wish you had,” he said cordially, “ but in his own 
creepy fashion I believe Purvis is working for you 
as well as he can, and he has an extraordinary knowl- 
edge of this country and its language. You see, it 
is not as if you were looking for your brother amongst 
the most respectable English colonists in the land. 


PETER AND JANE 


247 

You may have to hunt for him in some remarkably 
queer places, and it is there it strikes me that Purvis 
will help you.” 

“ I wish the thing were settled one way or another,” 
said Peter, 44 so that I might know where I stand. 
You see, if my brother is alive — Well?” 

44 Nothing — only I thought I heard something 
moving outside the wire netting, and I hate the way 
Purvis creeps about.” 

44 Purvis is putting his little boy to bed and hear- 
ing him say his prayers,” said Toffy ; 44 he is a queer 
mixture, but quite harmless.” 

Ross rose, and walking to the edge of the corridor, 
he peered out into the pitch-black night. 

44 It is so dark,” he said, 44 1 cannot see a thing.” 

44 Never mind,” said Peter, 44 there are no wild 
beasts to spring at you unawares. Do you remem- 
ber poor Cranley, who was in Pitt’s house at Eton? 
Did 3 r ou ever hear how he was killed in his verandah 
in India by a tiger? ” 

44 Yes,” said Ross absently; 44 awfully sad thing 
. . . Do you know, Peter, I believe I will just 

walk round to the other side of the house and see 
if that chap is really putting his child to bed.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


So much has been said and so much has been written 
on the subject of the man who works and the woman 
who weeps ; the man who fares forth and the woman 
who waits at home, that it hardly seems necessary 
to begin a chapter with another dissertation upon 
the subject. Lovers are proverbially discontented 
under the adverse conditions of separation. Peter 
Ogilvie would have given much to be at home in the 
winter following his mother’s death, and there is no 
doubt about it that Jane Erskine felt that things 
would have been many times easier abroad. But if 
these two persons had changed places their sentiments 
would doubtless have been exchanged also, thus prov- 
ing what a difficult class of beings lovers are, and 
how impossible it is to satisfy or to console them. 

Jane was riding in the Park on a bitter cold win- 
ter morning in the teeth of a strong east wind; she 
looked her best in her dark riding habit, and a long 
gallop on the tan had brought a fine colour to her 
cheeks. She rode well, and looked as handsome and 
distinguished as I think she always did. But life 
had lost a good deal of its flavour to Jane, and she 
had acquired a bad habit of thinking too much about 
mail days. She almost envied her aunt and her 
cousin their enjoyment of tea-parties and their mild 
shopping, which seemed completely to fill their lives, 
248 


PETER AND JANE 


249 


and she was philosophising on this and other subjects 
as she rode in the Park this morning on a big bay 
hunter who despised the Row as much as she herself 
did. 

“ Love is not a good thing,” said Jane. “ When 
Peter was in Africa with his regiment, of course I 
missed him, and I loved his letters; but I did not 
know that he wanted me so much, and it was not a 
bit like what his absence is now.” 

Metaphorically, Jane gave herself a shake and 
began to call herself names — stupid, grumbling 
idiot, and the like. But this winter was not an easy 
time for her. Her uncle, who had formerly been 
her companion in all out-door matters, and who had 
ridden and walked with her and shared her tastes in 
very many ways, was laid up with an attack of gout, 
and when she was not sitting with him her aunt 
believed that a good deal of her time should be spent 
in the drawing-room. The drawing-room was hot 
and Mrs. Erskine and her cousin Florence, mild-man- 
nered gentle ladies both of them, had a curious habit 
of dwelling almost entirely on sad or even disastrous 
subjects. So that their conversation, though full 
of a strange sort of enjoyment to themselves, was 
frequently of a depressing nature to others. When 
Florence went out to tea alone and hurried back early 
and sought the drawing-room with a hasty step, it 
could almost always be predicted that she had some 
disturbing piece of news to impart. It cannot be 
too strongly insisted upon that Florence Erskine 


250 


PETER AND JANE 


was a thoroughly kind-hearted woman, yet I have 
known her to take up her stand and watch impatiently 
for her mother’s return, so that she might spring out 
into the hall and impart to her before anyone else 
could do so the news of a sudden death. Both ladies 
engaged in mildly charitable work, and faithfully 
attended drawing-room meetings in connexion there- 
with. Here they would collect items of a painful 
and even sensational nature, and whether it was a 
matter of sweated industries, or oppressed maids-of- 
all-work, they had subjects of lugubrious discussion 
for the entire evening. 

No doubt it is a matter of necessity with human 
beings to have some sort of excitement in their lives. 
While to some others a sensational paragraph in a 
newspaper, a column headed with the words 
“ Scandal ” or “ Horrible Revelations,” or even the 
perusal of a missionary leaflet with tales of blood 
in it are almost the only stirring events and fre- 
quently the only pleasurable excitements of their lives. 

Mrs. and Miss Erskine were notorious gossips, and 
they were not particularly companionable to Jane 
Erskine, whose open nature was never intended for 
the whispered colloquy, or the offensive “ don’t tell” 
of the confidential talker. And there were several 
occasions lately on which her cousin and aunt had 
seemed absorbed in one of those mysteries so dear to 
them, and had even clumsily stopped some conver- 
sation suddenly when Jane came into the room. 


PETER AND JANE 


251 


Again, they had acquired a habit not less irritating 
of speaking in a veiled manner, with a good deal of 
hesitation whenever Peter’s affairs were under dis- 
cussion. They talked with an almost overdone reserve 
of Mrs. Ogilvie’s death, and would frequently look 
pityingly at Jane, or squeeze her hand sympathetic- 
ally. Jane bore their condolences with her good 
manners; but she had lately discovered that it was 
quite impossible for Mrs. Erskine or Florence to 
keep a secret, and she flushed when she thought how 
many times her own affairs and the tragedy of her 
dearest friend’s sudden death might have been dis- 
cussed round the drawing-room tea-table. 

Now to Jane, however sad the whole affair was, 
it had not appeared particularly mysterious. She 
accepted the fact that Mrs. Ogilvie, being in bad 
health and in a nervous state, had taken a curious 
antipathy to her elder son, and that during that 
strange mental disturbance she had sent the little 
boy away to Argentina, where he had probably died. 
It was manifestly impossible that during all these 
years something should not have been heard of him 
if he had lived. Mrs. Ogilvie’s letter said nothing 
about his being alive at the time when she wrote ; 
besides, it was impossible to think that she was guilty 
of the crime of depriving a man of his property and 
his inheritance. The result of Peter’s journey to 
Argentina, she believed, would be simply to prove 
Edward Ogilvie’s death, and that done, all would be 


252 


PETER AND JANE 


well again, and nothing need be known about this 
family matter, if only her aunt and Florence could 
for once be persuaded to hold their tongues. 

Yet the mysterious whispers continued, and Jane 
had been for a gallop round the Park in order to 
get rid of the sense of irritation which she had lately 
felt. There had been a word introduced lately into 
the discreetly veiled conversations of the hot draw- 
ing-room which offended Jane. Florence and her 
mother referred sadly, as became their principles, to 
the old scandal. Now Jane was one of those healthy- 
minded young women whom the affairs that are 
lightly called scandals had never remotely interested. 
If she ever heard an evil story she lightly dismissed 
it as “ something rather beastly,” and turned to more 
wholesome things, with the instinct of a flower for the 
light or as a sea-bird will dip its wings in cleansing 
pure salt water. When she thought of Florence’s 
veiled speeches, the big horse that she was riding 
plunged suddenly as she dug it fiercely with her heel. 
She left the few riders who had faced the bitter cold 
of the morning, and galloped on alone on the de- 
serted north side of the ring. 

Two girls met her as she turned into the ride at 
Hyde Park corner again; they were young things 
with a joyous outlook on life, and with clear, high- 
pitched voices. They rode beside her and told her 
of their parties and their new frocks, and how father 
had been rather tiresome about this and that. It was 
like coming out of some vitiated atmosphere to be 


PETER AND JANE 


253 


with them and to find that the world was sunlit and 
clean again. 

Florence and her aunt had put themselves out of 
the sphere of moral criticism by their conventional 
piety. It would have been impossible for the most 
courageous to have pointed out a duty, or to have 
checked a fault in persons whose happiness consisted 
in drawing-room meetings, and two women who drove 
habitually in a closed brougham to hear stories of 
suffering missionaries and sweated trades must be 
good ; nevertheless, it was with no little sense of relief 
that Jane heard of an invitation which had lately 
come to her relatives to go and spend Christmas at 
Bath. General Erskine felt that the change might 
do his gout good, and the two ladies accepted with 
pleasure. They were martyrs to colds in the head — 
the result of closed windows in the brougham and 
many furs; and this distressing form of complaint 
had recently attacked them both with violence. A 
visit to Bath would be the very thing for their health, 
if Miss Abingdon could have Jane to stay with her. 

Miss Abingdon accepted responsibility again in 
one short telegram as reserved and as severe as six- 
pence could make it; but her joy was very difficult 
of concealment when she met Jane at Culversham 
station, and drove her back to the safe keeping of 
her own house. Jane was to spend one whole month 
at Tetley and to stay over Christmas with Miss 
Abingdon. 

After a winter which had been more full of sad- 


254 


PETER AND JANE 


ness than any Miss Erskine had ever experienced 
before, the change to Culversham was received with 
whole-hearted joy. The uncertainty of her future, 
the whispers of her aunt and cousin, her uncle’s ill 
health and Peter’s absence combined had made the 
last few months a miserable time such as is, alas! 
not unknown to happy girlhood. Those whom we 
expect to be most j oyf ul may be saying to themselves 
that with courage they may be able to postpone a 
torrent of tears until they are safely in bed at night. 

Wherefore, to return to Tetley, where no one ever 
whispered and where a more than usually joyous 
period of girlhood had been spent, was as refreshing 
and as delightful a change as could well be imagined. 
Miss Abingdon’s large staff of servants, all elderly 
and over-paid, combined with their mistress to wel- 
come Miss Erskine back. The familiar rooms had 
never looked more pleasant, the old-fashioned laven- 
der-scented sheets had never had such a perfume of 
home about them as they seemed to Jane to have 
when she returned that evening. The big tea-table 
by the fire spoke its own welcome, and the massive 
silver winked delightedly at her. The fire (Miss 
Abingdon was famous for her good fires) roared 
joyfully up the chimney. Her dogs, bless them! 
knew Jane’s voice long before she was out of the 
carriage, and gave their own particular demonstra- 
tive affection; and Miss Abingdon, whom emotion had 
the effect of making more than usually severe, snubbed 
her maid and scolded the butler; and sitting down 


PETER AND JANE 


255 


by the fire while Jane poured out tea, she entered 
into so long and minute an account of her gardener’s 
shortcomings that it would seem as though her niece 
had come from London for no other reason than to 
hear the recital of her wrongs at this villain’s hands. 

“ You must go to bed early,” said Miss Abingdon 
with a sort of frigid excitement, when she and Jane 
went to dress for dinner; and then she kept her up 
until long after twelve o’clock, talking about every- 
thing in the neighbourhood — Mrs. Avory was estab- 
lished in a charming little cottage almost at the gate 
of the Vicarage, and she was a sort of senior curate 
to Canon Wrottesley. Mrs. Avory, Miss Abingdon 
said, was really able to appreciate the Canon, and in 
going so far the lady probably meant that Mrs. 
Avory wholly admired and perhaps came very near 
to accepting as her Pope the good-looking Rector 
of Culversham. Mr. Lawrence was being most atten- 
tive and useful, as he always was, and had chosen 
a new tea-service for Miss Abingdon the last time 
he was in town — his taste was perfect in such mat- 
ters. He had even arranged to have her baths 
painted with a special sort of white enamel, and Miss 
Abingdon could only hope the world would not cen- 
sure her for confiding these intimate and domestic 
details to a gentleman. Mrs. Wrottesley was still 
very far from well ; her illness seemed to have brought 
out (so Miss Abingdon said) all the nobleness of 
Canon Wrottesley’s character. But in justice, Miss 
Abingdon ought to say, that Mrs. Wrottesley had 


256 


PETER AND JANE 


been equally self-forgetful, and had insisted on her 
husband’s going into society a little. He was com- 
ing to them — according to old, established custom 
— for dinner on Christmas day, and Miss Sherard 
was coming down for the week, and whom else would 
Jane like to ask for Christmas? 

At bedtime she poked her niece’s exceedingly large 
bedroom fire, and complained that her housemaid had 
no notion of keeping a room warm. And she lighted 
candles and peeped into the soap dish, and insisted on 
an extra covering being placed on Miss Erskine’s 
overburdened bed. But when she had at last quitted 
the room and the candles were all put out, and the 
ruddy firelight traced in squares on the ceiling 
through the chequered guard which alone prevented 
nightly conflagrations from Miss Abingdon’s piled-up 
fires, Jane Erskine felt, after some weeks which had 
been very trying ones for her, a sense of comfort and 
consoling, which she compared in her unpoetic mind 
to the joys of bed and bath after a long day’s hunt- 
ing in the stinging rain. 

Here in this pleasant, peaceful country home a 
certain clear sanity of vision was possible, which made 
patience easier than it had been, and faith in good- 
ness more reasonable, and belief in virtue more nat- 
ural; and sleep was not so much unconsciousness as 
unconscious enjoyment. 

Miss Abingdon was a staunch upholder of familiar 
customs. There was a certain ritual to be observed 
during Christmas week, and Miss Abingdon observed 


PETER AND JANE 


257 


it. She gave handsome presents to her household on 
Christmas morning, she always wept in church on 
Christmas day, out of respect to the memory of an 
elder sister who had died many years ago, and whom, 
as a matter of fact, Miss Abingdon had never known 
very intimately, for she had married and left home 
when Mary Abingdon was but a child. She gave tips 
to bell-ringers and carol-singers, and entertained 
Sunday School children and “ mothers ” in the laun- 
dry. But it was part of Miss Abingdon’s ortho- 
doxy to regard the Christmas festival with a certain 
pious sadness. These anniversaries, she was wont 
to remark conscientiously, mitigating the enjoyment 
of placing handsome presents beside her guests’ 
breakfast plates, these anniversaries were full of sad- 
ness. And after having suffered fewer bereavements 
than commonly fell to the lot of most women of her 
age, she dutifully thought of her elder sister, whom 
she vaguely remembered as an occasional guest at 
her father’s house, and she could not have enjoyed 
a Christmas day sermon in which there was not an 
allusion to empty chairs. 

After morning service Miss Abingdon walked to 
the Vicarage and bestowed her yearly gifts upon the 
Wrottesley family. It was a matter of conscience 
with her to give a present of exactly the same value 
to Mrs. Wrottesley as she gave to the Canon, and 
this year she made her little presents with a good deal 
of compunction, remembering how difficult she had 
often found it to be quite fair in the distribution. 


258 


PETER AND JANE 


For Mrs. Wrotteslej was failing in health, and in 
her own plain unostentatious way she had made up 
her mind that her time for quitting this world was 
not very far off. She wrote her will with scrupulous- 
ness, exactness and justness, and having done so she 
made no allusion, whatever, to what must have been 
occupying her thoughts to the exclusion of everything 
else; but continued to live the life in which thought 
for herself had always been conspicuously absent. 
Mrs. Wrottesley’s circumstances had never called for 
any sensationl sacrifices, but it would have been diffi- 
cult to find a woman so simply convinced that her 
wishes and her own convenience were not of para- 
mount importance. Hardly anyone had ever recog- 
nised this, and it was the fault of her manner, per- 
haps, that accounted for the fact that she had received 
very little praise or commendation in her life. Praise 
and commendation were the right of her husband, and 
it is very possible that she infinitely preferred that he 
should be the recipient of them. In the early days 
of her married life there had been a period of poverty 
which no one had been allowed to feel acutely except 
Mrs. Wrottesley herself, and afterwards, when her 
very handsome fortune had come to her, there was 
none who had spent less of it than she. 

And now Mrs. Wrottesley was putting her house 
in order and saying very little about it, and won- 
dering half humorously which of Canon Wrottesley’s 
many admirers would be her successor. 

She received Miss Abingdon and Jane on Christ- 


PETER AND JANE 


25 9 


mas day in her pleasant drawing-room, which the 
wintry sunshine was flooding with warmth and joy- 
ousness, and she tendered her thanks for the pretty 
presents which had been brought for her, assured 
her enquirers that she was very much better in health, 
and smilingly said that she had ordered no dinner 
at home so that her husband and boys might be forced 
to accept Miss Abingdon’s customary hospitality. 
Canon Wrottesley received his wife’s statement as to 
the improvement of her health with ingenuous pleas- 
ure. He believed that she was really looking better, 
twitted her kindly on her pale cheeks, and with that 
optimism which declines to harbour fears and appre- 
hensions refused to believe that his wife was seriously 
ill. The Canon himself had had a bad cold lately, 
and his evident wish to believe that his own malady 
was as serious as Mrs. Wrottesley’s had something a 
little pitiful in it. If he, Canon Wrottesley, could 
get rid of a heavy cold and feel quite himself by 
Christmas day, his wife surely would pick up in 
health as soon as the warm weather came. He be- 
lieved he was doing right in making light of her ail- 
ments, and Mrs. Wrottesley saw all this quite plainly 
and loved her husband none the less for it, and merely 
added another reflection to those which in her quiet 
way she was sometimes wont to make about mankind 
in general, and about her own menkind in particular. 
Everyone knew that men were bad invalids and that 
they had not a great deal of sympathy with suf- 
fering, unless it was definitely and even aggressively 


260 


PETER AND JANE 


expressed. But being a woman of much charity, 
Mrs. Wrottesley had discovered that these traits of 
character had their origin in something not unkindly, 
but were due, perhaps, to a lack of imagination or to 
a belief that everything ought to go well, and that 
it was someone’s unpardonable fault when it did not 
do so. 

“ How is your cold? ” said Miss Abingdon with 
sympathy in her voice, and the Vicar threw back his 
handsome head and tapped his throat, which he said 
was a bit husky still, though it was no use giving 
way to illness. “ Master your health,” he said in 
a tone of muscular Christianity, “ and it won’t mas- 
ter you — eh, Mamma ? ” he said with a kindly encour- 
aging glance at his wife’s pale face on the sofa. 

“ I think it was so wrong of him,” said Miss Abing- 
don to Mrs. Wrottesley, u to continue to preach this 
winter when his chest was so bad; everyone was dis- 
tressed about it.” 

The Vicar, indeed, had come in for a large share 
of sympathy for his cold. Once his voice had failed 
him, and he had broken down in the middle of his 
sermon; the congregation had shown great presence 
of mind by remaining in their seats, but it was felt 
that the incident had been a dramatic one. 

Miss Abingdon sent her brougham with the foot 
warmer in it for the Vicarage party in the evening, 
and Canon Wrottesley proved himself to be as he 
always was a charming guest at a dinner table. His 
wife’s improvement of health, which she had urged 


PETER AND JANE 


261 


upon them all this morning, had removed considerable 
anxiety from his mind, and with his hopeful boyish- 
ness he already believed her to be well again. His 
spirits rose, and his Christmas joyfulness seemed to 
be a sort of repudiation of the certain depression that 
had clouded the Vicarage lately. His own cold had 
been a serious one, and at one time he had not quite 
liked what the doctors had said about Mrs. Wrot- 
tesley. Now, however, he was determined to believe 
that all was well. His boys were about him, and his 
wife was on the high road to recovery, and so great 
was the excellent Canon’s relief that in scorn of his 
late anxiety he even ventured upon a platitude kindly 
expressed to the effect that ladies gave way too much 
to their nerves. 

The Vicar of Wakefield, and even Mr. Pickwick 
himself, had never been more jovial at a Christmas 
party. A silver bowl in the middle of the table sug- 
gested punch ; Canon Wrottesley must brew a wassail 
bowl. A footman was sent for this thing and that, 
for lemons and boiling water — the water must boil, 
remember! And too much sugar would spoil the 
whole thing. The Vicar stirred the ingredients with 
an air, and poured from time to time a spoonful of 
the punch into a wineglass, and sampled its qualities 
by rolling it in his mouth and screwing up his eyes. 

“Was there ever such a man!” thought Miss 
Abingdon. 

Mrs. Avory and her little girl had joined the 
informal gathering of friends, and the child’s pres- 


262 


PETER AND JANE 


ence was an excuse for a certain amount of jollity, 
which not all those assembled at Tetley were per- 
fectly sincere in maintaining. The eldest Wrottesley 
boy, for instance, believed himself to be broken- 
hearted because Kitty would not marry him. And 
Kitty herself — for no reason whatever — had lost 
a good deal of her gaiety — and she told no funny 
stories and hardly ever shocked even Miss Abingdon, 
whom it was not difficult to shock. And Jane Erskine 
was “ playing up ” with all the courage of which her 
admirable and kindly nature was capable. She had 
looked at her wedding dress that morning, and had 
stooped down and kissed the satin folds, and was 
beginning to cry luxuriously over it, when she found 
that some carol singers expected her to appear at 
their breakfast in the laundry, and to be as cheerful 
as village folk always expect of their patrons. So 
Jane had postponed her tears to a more convenient 
season, and had squeezed Miss Abingdon’s hand in 
church when she cried in order to comfort her; and 
this afternoon she had been for a long walk with the 
eldest Wrottesley boy in order to console him, so that 
altogether Jane had had a busy day of it, and had 
heard enough about other people’s troubles to last 
her until next Christmas at least ! 

The wassail bowl being now mixed to the Vicar’s 
satisfaction he filled the glasses of the company, and 
allotted to each lady the thimbleful which he believed 
to be a woman’s share of any alcoholic beverage, 
and he extracted compliments from everyone. The 


PETER AND JANE 


wassail bowl was a triumph, and the candle of Mr. 
Pickwick was put out. Even Dickens’ hero could 
not have given such an air of jollity to a festive occa- 
sion like this. He toasted everyone in the good old- 
fashioned custom, requesting “ a glass of wine with 
you ” on this side and on that. After dinner, the 
presence of Dorothy Avory furnished the pretext for 
inaugurating a country dance in the hall. Canon 
Wrottesley pushed chairs aside and rolled rugs up, 
and before many minutes were over Sir Roger de 
Coverley was in full swing, and he was footing it 
with the indomitable energy of the man whose feet 
may be heavy but whose heart is aye young. 

Miss Abingdon in grey satin was the Vicar’s part- 
ner, and attempted to go through the steps in the 
minuet style; and the young Wrottesley s were at 
an age when to be asked to dance Sir Roger de Cov- 
erley can only be construed as meaning a deadly 
insult. Fortunately for them the Vicar, by some 
strategical movement, always found himself in the 
enviable position of the dancer who ambles forward 
to make his bow, and Miss Abingdon conscientiously 
took the wrong turning whenever it came to u down 
the middle ” and remarked with dignity that she 
hoped she might dance where she liked. The lady 
who was playing the piano at last stopped the music 
with a few solemn chords, faintly suggestive of an 
Amen, and Canon Wrottesley, who was proceeding 
with his fifth or sixth sally into the middle of the 
figure, stopped breathless and made a noble bow to 


264 


PETER AND JANE 


Miss Abingdon. It was just then that Kitty Sherard 
detected a movement on his part towards the music 
on the piano, and she murmured to Jane that a vocal 
performance must positively be forbidden. Dorothy 
Avory looked over-heated, and as she had furnished 
the excuse for a rather poor attempt at romping, it 
was quite sufficient that she was tired of dancing to 
give the Canon an opportunity for a little quiet 
reading until all were rested. He put on his spec- 
tacles, which he always wore with an air of apology, 
and gave out the title of the story, “ The Old Vicomte 
— A Christmas Episode.” 

Doubtless the scene of the story was laid in France, 
but that hardly justified Canon Wrottesley in read- 
ing the whole of it in broken English. His knowl- 
edge of French had always been a matter of pride 
with him, and he enjoyed rolling out the foreign 
names with a perfect accent. 

The number of listeners in the room had dimin- 
ished considerably before the reading was finished, 
but some poor relations of Miss Abingdon’s, who 
were spending Christmas at Tetley, described the 
evening as a real 64 homey one ” and thanked Miss 
Abingdon effusively for it when they went to bed. 
Good nights were said on all sides ; the Vicarage party 
drove away, and the conscientious romping and 
jollity being over it may have been felt by some of 
Miss Abingdon’s guests that the duties of Christmas 
day were not altogether light, and that perhaps now 
the fatigues of enforced cheerfulness might be aban- 


PETER AND JANE 


265 


doned in favour of a more easy and pleasant frame 
of mind. 

Kitty Sherard came into Jane’s room in her dress- 
ing gown, with her hairbrush in her hand, and an- 
nounced with a considerable display of feeling that 
she thought Christmas day was poor sport. Most 
girls with such a profusion of curls as Kitty had 
would have been content to allow them to wander 
unrestrained over her shoulders; but Miss Sherard 
with her passion for decoration would have dressed 
beautifully on a desert island — if her trunks had 
been washed ashore with her. She had fastened a 
knot of rose-coloured ribbon in her hair, and wore 
it on one side just over her eye with an unstudied 
and perfectly naive and charming effect. In her 
lace wrapper and ribbons she looked more than ever 
like a picture by Greuze that through some happy 
chance had stepped out of a frame. Miss Sherard 
rode to hounds and could tire out many men in the 
field; she took her fences in a way that brought the 
heart to the mouth, as the saying is. She was hardly 
ever tired, and her delicately tinted complexion varied 
very little ; but with all this her appearance had some- 
thing pathetically fragile about it, and to-night, in 
her simple white wrap and with her brown curls about 
her shoulders, Kitty looked more than ever like some 
beautiful child. Her little hands and feet were 
unusually small, and her white throat showing above 
the lace wrapper might very well have belonged to 
some quite little girl. Miss Sherard established her- 


PETER AND JANE 


self in a big chintz-covered chair by Jane’s fire, and 
laid her brush and comb on her knee. 

“ I suppose you know,” said Jane simply, “ that 
you are extraordinarily pretty, Kitty ? ” 

“ I don’t think I admire my type,” said Kitty with 
as little affectation as her friend had shown. “ I 
spend a fortune on dresses which look cheap, and so 
people think I am nice-looking.” 

Jane thought such humility on the part of anyone 
so pretty as Miss Sherard was a sign in her that she 
must be out of spirits ; so she said, “ Oh, nonsense, 
Kitty! ” in a very affectionate way, and begged that 
Miss Sherard would smoke a cigarette if she felt 
inclined. 

“ No,” said Kitty, “ I don’t think that I want to 
smoke.” 

Jane drew her chair nearer the big chair on the 
hearthrug, and blowing out the candles the two girls 
sat by the firelight in her bedroom. 

Tenderness, as everyone knows, is an ineradicable 
instinct of womanhood. Even when she attempts 
masculinity it is quite an absurd little pretence, and 
reminds one of a child who crawls about on the floor 
with a woolly mat over her, and cries, “ I am a bear ! ” 
Kitty Sherard might smoke cigarettes and drive in 
a very high dog-cart, but just then her heart felt 
so very nearly breaking, and she was so grateful 
to Jane for blowing out the lights, and sitting 
near her that in defiance of her mood she began to 
laugh. 


PETER AND JANE 


267 


“ What a moist party we were in church this morn- 
ing,” she said smiling broadly and ignoring the fact 
that her eyes had tears in them. 44 Miss Abingdon 
looked conscientiously tearful, and Mrs. Avory ap- 
plied herself to her pocket handkerchief as soon as 
the Canon began his usual joyful Christmas message 
about empty chairs and absent friends.” 

44 Poor Mrs. Avory!” said Jane; 44 weeping has 
become a sort of habit with her, and tears come very 
easily. If we had trimmed parasols and eaten tinned 
food for supper for a year or two, Kitty, I imagine 
we should become very tearful, too.” 

Miss Sherard unloosed the rose-coloured ribbon 
which bound her hair, and, beginning to brush out 
her curls, she said, 44 Yes,” slowly and turned to other 
topics. 

44 Do you ever feel quite old, Jane? ” she said at 
last. 44 1 do, especially during a long frost. I feel 
as if I had tried every single bit of pleasure that there 
is in the world and had come through it and out on 
the other side, and found that none of it was the least 
little bit of good.” 

44 Heaven send us a thaw soon!” exclaimed Jane. 

44 1 quite adore my father,” said Kitty with em- 
phasis, 44 and I think he helps to keep me young ; but 
it is rather pathetic, isn’t it, that anyone should think 
one so perfect as he thinks me? ” 

Jane rose ostentatiously from her place and opened 
the window and consulted a thermometer that hung 
outside. 


268 


PETER AND JANE 


44 Still freezing hard,” she said, and returned to 
her place again. 

44 You are rather a brick, Jane,” said Kitty. 

44 To-morrow,” said Jane, 44 I shall certainly write 
to your father urging his immediate return before 
you begin to grow grey-haired.” 

44 You’ve had a fairly odious Christmas day,” said 
Kitty, not noticing the interruption. 44 You have 
had to dry Miss Abingdon’s tears, and you are anx- 
ious because Mrs. Wrottesley is ill; and above all, 
Peter is away, and seems likely to remain away for 
a long time yet. Why don’t you throw something at 
me when I come to your room in the middle of the 
night as cross as a bear with ten sore heads, and 
begin to grumble at you ? ” 

This remark J ane considered serious ; she remained 
silent for a moment and then said, 46 The end of it 
will be that you’ll get engaged to be married, Kitty, 
and then I shall jeer at you, and recall to you every 
one of your past flirtations, and all your good reso- 
lutions about remaining single and being happy ever 
afterwards.” 

44 1 do believe in hunting being an immense conso- 
lation,” said Kitty. 44 I can’t understand being very 
unhappy on a horse.” 

44 It is just five minutes to twelve,” said Jane; 46 let 
me give you a last Christmas blessing. May you be 
as happy off a horse as on it, and may your cares, 
whatever they are, not bother you for very long ! ” 

44 Is it really still Christmas day,” said Kitty with 


PETER AND JANE 


269 


an impatient sigh — 44 it began quite a week ago ! ” 
She gathered up her hairpins and brushes and gave 
a yawn. 44 If it is nearly twelve o’clock I suppose 
I ought to go,” she said. 

“ I am not a bit sleepy,” quoth Jane. 

“ Christmas evening,” said Kitty, addressing her 
remarks scrupulously to the fire, 44 is so essentially 
a time for confidences that it would be horribly con- 
ventional to indulge in them — besides you know one 
rather connects confidences with provincial young 
ladies in country towns.” 

44 With the speeches of Messrs. Brown, Jones 
and Robinson carefully treasured up and repeated 
to bosom friends,” said Jane. 

44 Yes,” said Kitty, 44 and I fancy it is quite fash- 
ionable amongst that sort of person to have a broken 
heart.” 

44 They think it interesting,” said Jane. 

44 Apart from the fact of my winter being dull,” 
said Kitty, 44 with my beloved parent in Rome, my 
temper is never proof against giving way when any- 
one reads aloud to me. The story of the French 
Vicomte is really answerable for my present horrible 
state of mind.” 

44 One always connects reading aloud with sick 
beds, and work parties,” said Jane. 44 When you are 
ill, Kitty, I intend to come and read good books to 
you.” 

44 Mrs. Avory encouraged the Canon,” said Kitty ; 
44 and I found out afterwards that she had read the 


270 


PETER AND JANE 


story before, and yet she gave a sort of surprised 
giggle at everything.” 

“ The Wrottesleys are being awfully good to her,” 
said Jane excusingly. 

Kitty was still gazing into the fire, and now she 
spoke slowly. Her tone was that of a sensible person 
quietly considering some subject which only remotely 
interested her. 66 1 suppose,” she said steadily and 
still in that tone of admirable commonsense just 
touched with curiosity, “ that Mrs. Avory will al- 
ways continue to think that to be true forever and 
ever to Toffy is the most noble and virtuous action 
in the world.” 

And then a most unexpected thing happened, for 
Kitty kneeled down suddenly on the hearthrug while 
the fire-light shone in her eyes and imparted a fierce 
red look to them. “ Oh, what is the use of it all ! ” 
she cried, 6i and what is to be the end of it ! Mr. 
Avory is not going to die — he’s the strongest man 
I know, and he can’t be much more than forty years 
old! How does she think it is all going to end? 
Don’t you see how absurd the whole thing is ! She’s 
seven years older than Toffy, so that even if she 
could marry him it would not be the best thing for 
him. Oh, I know she has behaved well and has 
worked hard! I know she has eaten horrid food and 
trimmed parasols, and been faithful and good, but 
will she ever let him care for anyone else? ” 

“ Does he want to — ” began Jane, bewildered and 
distressed ; “ I mean, one hadn’t thought of it. I 


PETER AND JANE 


271 


have grown accustomed somehow to think of his al- 
ways being in love with Mrs. Avory.” 

“ Everyone has,” began Kitty again, twisting her 
fingers together and laughing in a hard, unnatural 
way, worse than the most unnatural little stage laugh 
that was ever heard. 46 But how can anyone tell if 
he cares for her still! Toffy is only twenty-five, 
and surely it is not altogether impossible that he 
might care for someone else ! ” 

“Kitty!” said Jane; she took a step forward and 
put her arm around Kitty’s shoulders as if to steady 
for a moment the shaking slender little figure, 
“ Kitty!” 

“ Isn’t it ridiculous ? ” said Kitty. She swallowed 
down a sob in her throat and made a pretence of 
laughing again, while her hands played with the 
silver brush and her eyes looked large and fierce. 

“ I never knew — I never guessed ! ” began Jane 
helplessly. 

“ You were never meant to know,” said Kitty, with 
an attempt at hiding her face. “No one was ever 
meant to know, and now I shall never be able to look 
you in the face again as long as we both do live.” 
Her voice dropped suddenly; she was still kneeling 
on the hearthrug with the costly paraphernalia of 
her toilet about her — ribbons, and silver brushes, 
and a little enamel box for hairpins. She buried her 
face in her hands. “ It’s been going on so long, 
Jane, and you’ve all been so sorry for Mrs. Avory 
and so sorry for Toffy.” 


272 


PETER AND JANE 


“ Does he know? ” asked Jane in a low voice. 
Kitty threw up her head a little. 

“ But he cares,” said Jane, looking back with a 
feeling of wonder at her own blindness over the 
last few weeks. “ He does care, Kitty ! ” 

“ Oh,” said Kitty bursting into tears, “ isn’t it all 
a frightful muddle!” 


CHAPTER XIV 


The conclusion therefore which may be arrived at 
on the vexed question as to which is preferable, the 
lot of the man who works or the lot of the woman 
who weeps, may be summed up in the convenient 
phrase : “ There is a great deal to be said on both 
sides.” 

It is true that Kitty Sherard and Jane left behind 
in comfortable and prosaic England were spared 
the torment of flies and mosquitoes and other minor 
ills; they escaped many of the hard things of life 
and enjoyed many of its pleasures and luxuries, and 
these mitigations seemed to them things of very little 
worth, and the world of action, when viewed from 
the safe security of their environment, appeared to be 
the only possible thing which might assuage pain or 
lessen the bitterness of separation. 

Peter Ogilvie and his friend Sir Nigel Christo- 
pherson meanwhile were in the midst of weather as hot 
as can be very well endured even by English people 
who seem capable of resisting almost every sort 
of bad climate. The sun rose on the edge of the 
level plains every morning with horrible punctuality, 
and stared and blazed relentlessly until it had burned 
itself out in a beautiful rage and glory in the blood- 
red western sky. 

“ Dawn,” Ross said, “ is one of the things you 
273 


274 


PETER AND JANE 


are disposed to admire when you first come to Argen- 
tina; but when the hot weather begins you feel in- 
clined to throw your boots at the sun when it rises.” 

The very early morning was nearly always cool, 
and the ponies were saddled as soon as it was light, 
and nearly the whole work of the estancia was as a 
rule done before mid-day breakfast. To-day, how- 
ever the work had been heavy and the day was al- 
most unendurably hot. The wild mares on the 
estancia, whose thick manes and tails got matted 
with abrojos — a sort of burr which in this fashion 
is carried and sown far and wide — had to be 
rounded up into the corral to be deprived of their 
matted hair. It was this business which had been 
occupying all hands since early morning. The few 
neighbours, as is customary, lent their services and 
the services of their peons to come and help in the 
work. The preliminary to the day’s proceedings 
was to kill a cow, which would before the evening be 
entirely consumed and eaten by the peons and extra 
hands. The natives fortified themselves with mate 
and then the queer cavalcade set out from the door. 
Murray on a three-quarter-bred English horse, and 
his charming wife who had come to ride with him; 
Peter and Toffy with their sleeves rolled up and 
rebenques (riding whips made of plaited hide with 
long flat thongs of leather) ; Purvis looking neat 
and pale and delicate, and riding all day on a cun- 
ning grey pony without turning a hair or showing 
the least sign of fatigue; Ross in a dress as nearly as 


PETER AND JANE 


275 


possible resembling that of a gaucho; and various 
hangers on, all mounted, all more at home on a horse 
than on their own feet, down to Lara’s little boy 
who brought the post-bags, sitting his horse bare- 
backed and urging it on with his bare heel. They 
skirted down to the extreme edge of the water and 
worked inwards toward the corral, driving the herd 
of mares in front of them, but often losing them 
again in a sudden backward rush, or in an onward 
sweep which carried them far past the corral. To 
head them back again, or to round up one or more 
fugitive mares who had escaped from the herd, re- 
quired some hard riding, and when the bulk of them 
were in the corral the work was not over. As soon 
as one of the mares felt the lasso round her she 
plunged into the thick of the herd, rearing and kick- 
ing, while four or five men hung on to the lasso 
to haul her out. It was a queer sight to see four 
or five stalwart peons dragged round the corral like 
a clown at the tail of a circus horse. When a cap- 
tured mare got clear of the rest of the herd a second 
lasso was thrown round her fore legs and then the 
rearing began in earnest, until being hauled in dif- 
ferent directions, the mare however stout of heart, 
always fell, and a pair of shears having deprived 
her of her matted hair she was driven out of the cor- 
ral. It was a day for tough muscles and hard hands. 
The hide of the lasso did not suit tender skins nor 
feeble arms. Peter saw the huge major-domo put 
his arms round a colt’s neck and throw him as a 


276 


PETER AND JANE 


wrestler will throw a man while the mares were whinny- 
ing on all sides, and kicking heels were sending the 
dust up in clouds. Toffy in polo breeches and a 
fine gauze shirt worked in the thick of the melee ; 
and Peter had begun to be sceptical as to whether 
the fastest burst of hounds over the shires was quite 
equal to that ride across the monta in the mists of 
the early morning. 

Now it was afternoon and the heavy day’s work 
was over. Hopwood had provided baths, and the 
Murrays had stayed to breakfast. Now she and 
her husband had ridden home, Peter was writing let- 
ters while Ross and Toffy dozed in long cane chairs 
in the corridor. Purvis sat on the little cretonne- 
covered box beside the empty fireplace and looked 
with lack-lustre eyes into space. He had brought 
none of his own men to help with the mares, as the 
Murrays had done, and the ominous whisper grew 
that there was trouble on his estancia. Ross treated 
the matter lightly, and explained it by saying that 
Purvis was making a fortune with his steamers, and 
was feeding his men on came fiacca — the unpardon- 
able sin in Argentina. “ Hang it [ ” he said ; “ you 
can’t be too particular about your neighbours in a 
country like this ! Purvis isn’t a bad little chap, and 
I believe he’s worth a dozen detectives in this affair 
of yours, Peter.” 

Peter himself, however, was inclined to draw back 
a little. “ He has put me on the wrong scent once 
or twice,” he said. 


PETER AND JANE 


277 

“ After all, you haven’t told him much,” said Ross. 
And Peter agreed that this was so. 

There was an undefined feeling in his mind that 
if he had to hear that his brother was alive he should 
hear of it through such legalised channels as Sir John 
Falconer had arranged. The detective spirit was 
not strong in Peter Ogilvie. He would like to have 
taken the whole world into his confidence and asked 
them to speak out if they had anything to say. But 
Mr. Semple and Sir John had cautioned him against 
this procedure, and such researches as he himself 
had been able to make had been taken at times with 
such surprising caution that no possible clue was 
given toward finding the child, while at others he had 
allowed more to be known than Mr. Semple would 
have thought wise. His best chance of getting in- 
formation seemed to be through Purvis; all sorts and 
conditions of men used the little river steamer and 
its owner’s knowledge of Spanish made questions 
easy. Purvis had not pushed his attentions upon 
them, but he had taken two fruitless journeys to 
Colorado on his behalf, and had warned him that if 
the search was to be thorough a certain amount of 
money would have to be spent. 

The trouble was that Purvis was such a worm. 
His ways were circuitous, and lately Peter had be- 
gun to suspect that he knew more than he said ; this 
irritated our candid friend, and he had become re- 
served in his dealing with their neighbour at La 
Dorada lately. He began to discount the fact that 


£78 


PETER AND JANE 


he had ever consulted Purvis at all in the matter, and 
he lightly waved aside any information that was 
given to him. He was always busy at the moment 
when Purvis wanted a few words with him, and he ad- 
vised Toffy to say if he was asked that Sir John 
Falconer had the matter in hand and for the present 
they themselves were not going to move in the matter. 
Toffy thought that they had gone too far to make 
such an attitude possible. “ What harm can it do 
to know all he knows?” he said more than once, but 
Peter was not so sure about that. 

“ If he only knows things by listening at doors,” 
he said resentfully, “ I don’t want to have them re- 
peated to me.” 

“ I think I will ride to the post presently,” he 
said as he closed an envelope and stretched himself 
on his long deck chair. “ It must get cooler soon.” 

“ I will come with you,” said Purvis. “ I am ex- 
pecting letters which may want my immediate at- 
tention, and I can call at the telegraph office on my 
way. May I come so far with you? ” he asked; and 
his manner of making the small request was not as 
either of the other men would have made it. There 
was a touch of the lackey about Purvis, and his 
voice was sometimes humble to the verge of being 
irritating. 

“ Como no? 99 said Peter easily, having quickly 
picked up the formula of the country. His tone 
was not enthusiastic. The man’s mind was so in- 
clined to circumlocution that the very fact that he 


PETER AND JANE 


279 


had asked deliberately to accompany Peter on his ride 
towards the mail in the cool of the evening convinced 
him that he could have nothing of importance to 
say. 

They rode together over the short tough turf of 
the camp a little way without speaking, and then 
Purvis began in his smooth thin voice, riding a little 
nearer to his companion so as to make himself heard 
without undue exertion, “ I wanted to speak to you 
alone.” 

“ Say on,” said Peter. 

When he was riding Purvis was perhaps at his 
worst. He had an ugly seat in the saddle, and to- 
day as usual he wore a bowler hat with a puggery, 
and his dark grey suit made with trousers, and with- 
out riding boots. He looked straight in front of 
him with his tired watery eyes with the perpetual 
tear in them and said, “ I believe we are within 
measurable distance of finding the man you seek.” 

Peter looked full at him, but the other did not 
turn his head; his horse cantered along lazily in the 
evening light as he sat loosely in the saddle, and his 
pale, expressionless face was turned towards the path 
by which they were travelling. 

“ The name of the man,” he said, “ is Edward 
Ogilvie.” 

“ Yes,” said Peter, “ my brother.” The thing 
was out now, and he could thank Heaven that he did 
not wear his heart on his sleeve. 

“ It is a very strange story,” said Purvis. 


280 


PETER AND JANE 


“May we have it?” said Peter haughtily. He 
might employ Purvis as an agent, but it galled him 
to think that his future lay in the hands of this 
contemptible little man. 

“ No,” said Purvis in his hesitating, thin voice. 
“ You can’t have it for the present. To begin 
with,” he continued, turning towards Peter for the 
first time and raising pathetically large eyes towards 
him, “ I am not going to speak about it until I am 
sure, nor am I going to speak about it until I have 
asked you for some necessary details, which will 
make a mischance or a case of mistaken identity im- 
possible. I don’t want to make a fool of myself, as 
you have trusted me so far.” 

“ Ask me anything you like,” said Peter laconic- 
ally. His mind was pretty full just then, and there 
was a note of confidence in Purvis’s voice which gave 
him the idea that their search was nearly over. He 
began to wonder how much money he had, and 
whether there was any chance of the Scottish place 
being his. Bowshott of course would pass away 
from him, and the beautiful house with its galleries 
and its famous fishing river would be the property 
of some unknown man. Possibly the man had a 
wife, and where Jane was to have reigned as mis- 
tress there would be some Colonial woman, unused 
to great houses, and with manners perhaps not suited 
to her position. He wondered what his mother would 
have thought about it all, and whether she could in 
the least realise what the result of her unfinished let- 


PETER AND JANE 


281 


ter to him might be. Whatever her faults his mother 
was a great lady to her finger tips. He remembered 
her as he had been wont to see her, showing her 
pictures and gardens to the foreign royalties who 
came to see her, or receiving her Majesty when she 
drove over from Windsor and called upon her. Only 
Jane could ever fill her place adequately. Jane 
with her short skirts and graceful swinging walk, 
and her queer plain hats that so perfectly became 
her, and made country neighbours look over-dressed. 
He loved to remember her in a hundred different 
ways — in ivory satin with a string of pearls about 
her neck ; at meets on one of her sixteen-hand 
hunters ; playing golf ; painting the rabbit hutch 
in the garden ; binding up Toffy’s finger that morn- 
ing ages ago, when he had had a spill out of his 
motor-car; playing with the school children on the 
lawn; or best of all, perhaps, dancing in the great 
ballroom at Bowshott, and sitting with him after- 
wards in the dimness of his mother’s tapestry cham- 
ber, the dawn of love in her eyes and her great white 
feather fan laid upon her knees. 

“ Is the man married? ” asked Peter with a drawl. 

“ He is married.” Purvis’s eyes, which never 
willingly met those of another, could yet glance 
keenly when no other eyes met his. He darted a look 
at Peter sideways as the two horses swung together in 
their easy stride. 

“Wife alive?” Peter slowed down and lighted a 
cigarette with deliberation. 


PETER AND JANE 


“ That is part of the story which I cannot at 
present divulge,” said Purvis. 

“ It sounds mysterious,” said Peter, sending his 
horse into a canter again. 

“ If it were written in a romance it would hardly 
be believed,” said the other. 

“ You were going to ask me some questions,” said 
Peter as though to put an end to any dissertation 
on the romantic side of the story. “ It is a busi- 
ness matter,” he said, “ and we had better be busi- 
ness-like about it. We can unfold the romance of 
it later.” 

“ That is my wish,” said Purvis gravely. 

Peter began to tell himself that he was treating 
this man badly. He had nothing to gain beyond 
a little money for his services, and he had behaved 
well and with tact. So far as Peter knew he had 
betrayed his confidence to no one. The man was 
disinterested if he was nothing else, though perhaps 
his bill might be fairly high. 

“ I have reason to believe that the identity of the 
man can be proved,” said Purvis ; “ but I am not 
going to risk finding a mare’s nest.” 

“ I am not much help to you,” said Peter, 46 1 have 
never set eyes on him since I was two years old.” 

“ This is his photograph,” said Purvis, producing 
a card from his pocket. 

Peter took it in his hands and looked long at it. 
It represented a man probably above middle height, 
with dark hair and a clean-shaven face. 


PETER AND JANE 


283 


“ Can you tell me if it resembles any of your 
family,” said Purvis. 

“Well, ’pon my word I don’t know!” said Peter. 
“ The photograph is a small one, you see, and evi- 
dently not a very good one. He looks a gentle- 
manly sort of chap,” he finished with a touch of 
kindliness in his voice. If this man was his brother 
he wasn’t a bad-looking chap, and good Heavens! 
how badly he had been treated when you came to 
think of it. 

“ I gather, if you will allow me to say so,” said 
Purvis, “that there is money at stake?” 

“ There is money involved in the affair,” said 
Peter. 

“ Then the chief danger lies in the fact that even 
a strong chain of evidence is not likely to be ac- 
cepted by those who would benefit by Edward Ogil- 
vie’s death? ” 

“ I suppose one would play a fair game,” said 
Peter shortly. “ I should like to know what you 
have heard of the man.” 

“ I may tell you that much,” said Purvis ; “ I 
heard of him at Rosario.” 

“ Any reason why he should not have communi- 
cated with his friends all these years? ” 

“ Within the next few weeks,” said Purvis, “ I 
hope to be able to bring you face to face with the 
man, and then you can put what enquiries you 
like to him. You must surely see that it is necessary 
to act with caution until the thing is decided. Even 


PETER AND JANE 


now I can’t be quite sure if this man’s claim is 
valid, but once the story is out a dozen claimants 
may arise, and it would cost you a fortune to sift 
all the evidence which they might bring.” 

“ Yes, I see that,” said Peter. 

A bare-legged boy on a lean pony was seen ap- 
proaching them amidst a cloud of dust. The pony’s 
short canter made his pace as easy as a rocking 
chair, and the boy who rode him was half asleep 
with the heat. The post-bag dangled from his sad- 
dle, and his reins lay on the pony’s neck. 

“ Any letters ? ” said Peter in Spanish, and the 
boy handed the bag to him. The mail boat from 
England — which was run on purpose to carry 
Jane’s weekly letter to him, had brought the big 
square envelope with its usual commendable punctu- 
ality, and Peter chose this out from the rest of the 
letters, and handing Purvis some letters which be- 
longed to him, he gave the bag back to the boy, who 
cantered along with his bare legs swinging, until he 
disappeared into the level glare of the setting sun. 

Peter let his horse amble on slowly, and read his 
letter while he rode. 

“ I must push on, I think,” said the quiet voice 
of Purvis beside him. “ There are one or two things 
which I gather from my letters I must put straight 
at the estancia. I hope to have definite news to 
communicate to you before long.” 

“ Thanks,” said Peter, giving him a nod. “ You 
will let me hear from you as soon as you know any- 


PETER AND JANE 


285 


thing ? ” He turned his horse homewards and 
Purvis rode on alone. 

“ If he has found my brother,” quoth Peter, 
“Purvis has done his job, and I can’t complain; 
but he has got to settle the thing up without all 
this confounded mystery, or else he can leave it alone. 
There is one thing perfectly clear, Edward himself 
knows nothing about his parents or his prospects, 
or he would have claimed the property long ago. 
Now how has Purvis found out about the man what 
he doesn’t know himself? Where has he got his 
clue? One thing is pretty certain, that he doesn’t 
want me to meet my brother yet, which looks very 
much as if our friend Purvis was going to make some 
sort of bargain with the heir, whoever he is, before 
he allows him to know the truth himself. Well, 
the affair will be judged by English lawyers when 
we get home, and if it is a case of blackmail, for in- 
stance, English people are not very fond of that sort 
of thing, so Purvis may not be able to make such a 
good bargain as he thinks. 

“ Of course the chain of evidence may be per- 
fectly simple and quite strong. Purvis has prob- 
ably got hold of the name of whoever it was who 
brought Edward here, and has traced him somewhere 
and has got the whole story from him. My mother 
had always an unlimited supply of money ; she could 
have settled a large sum on the people who looked 
after him on hopes that he may be decently educated. 
Of course it is evident that some money must have 


286 


PETER AND JANE 


been paid, though the lawyers could find no trace of 
it amongst her papers. The only other hypothesis 
is that it is a case of some extraordinary aberration 
of memory, and that the child she disliked having 
been removed, she forgot about him altogether. All 
my life I never remembered hearing him mentioned; 
and as my mother did not return to Bowshott until 
I was nearly eight years old, very little may have 
been said to her that would recall the fact of the boy’s 
death. 

“ It is the beastly uncertainty of it,” he continued, 
riding slowly home on the dusty track which was the 
apology for a road across the camp. “ If the estate 
would pay me sufficient to live upon I really don’t 
care much about anything else. After all, we have 
no reason to suppose that my brother is not an ex- 
cellent fellow, and that Jane and I will not be stay- 
ing with him some day in the most amicable way. 
Probably we shall be allowed to live in the Dower 
House, if we want the place for hunting, and it would 
do for us very well if one or two improvements were 
made. . . . But Purvis must give me an ac- 

count of what he has been doing, and put me in pos- 
session of the facts of the case. I am not going to 
allow him to defraud either myself or my brother, 
whoever he is, and I am not going to be content 
with hints and suggestions, as if I were living in a 
penny novelette.” 

He rode slowly home through the heat that rose 
like a palpable gas from the scorched ground, until 


PETER AND JANE 


287 


the little estancia house hove in sight again. He 
found that Toffy and Ross were still enjoying their 
afternoon siesta. There was not a bit of shade 
anywhere, and the heat seemed to bum through 
the roof until the very floor was hot to walk upon. 
His thoughts went back to Purvis in his tweed clothes 
and the bowler hat with the puggery on it, and he 
wondered how he fared in the scorching heat. 
Probably the anaemic little man hardly knew what 
it was to be too hot. He used to ride over the camp 
when even the peons did not show their heads out 
of doors, and his hands were always cold and damp 
to the touch. Peter drank some tea and sat down at 
little Mrs. Chance’s writing table in the drawing- 
room, and wrote to Jane. There was a feeling of 
storm in the air, and he envied the two men sleeping 
luxuriously in the corridor. 

46 When you have been out here a year or two,” 
said the sleepy voice of Ross from the depths of a 
long cane chair, 44 you will find that letters are not 
only impossible but unnecessary. No one expects to 
hear from one after the first month or two, and if 
one did write there would be nothing to say.” 

44 When my creditors get too troublesome,” said 
Toffy, also waking up, 44 1 shall emigrate here and 
lose my own address. With strict economy one might 
live very cheaply in Argentina.” 

Lara’s boy, who had come with the letters, waited 
to ride back with the bag to the far-distant post 
office, and the Englishmen at the estancia stood and 


288 


PETER AND JANE 


watched him, a tiny figure on his tireless little Ar- 
gentina pony, riding away eastward until once more 
a cloud of dust swallowed him up. The humble post- 
man seemed to form a link with home, and in three 
weeks’ time the letters which they had confided to 
him would be safely in the hands of those to whom 
they were written in England. The pony’s unshod 
hoofs made hardly any sound on the turf, as he 
cantered off, and Lara’s boy in his loose shirt and 
shabby clothes, and his bare feet hanging stirrupless 
on each side of the pony, disappeared like a wraith. 
There was a week to wait before he would come with 
any more letters again. 

“ I wish the storm would burst or blow over,” said 
Ross ; “ the heat is worse than ever to-day, and it 
doesn’t seem as though we were going to have a cool 
night.” 

“ Even the peons look curled up,” said Toffy, 
looking at a group of men picturesquely untidy with 
loose shirts and scarlet boinas on their heads, who 
lounged against the palo a pique of the corral. 

“ What idle brutes they are really,” said Ross ; 
“ and they’re always ten times worse when Chance 
is away. Look at those bits of paper littering 
the place,” he went on fussily; “ now I know that 
those men have been told thousands of times not to 
let things fly about like that. But it saves them 
trouble when they clean a room to sweep everything 
out of doors and then leave it lying about.” 

Probably most men who own property have an in- 


PETER AND JANE 


289 


herent dislike to seeing scraps of paper lying about; 
the sight suggests trippers’ and visitors’ days, and 
Peter stepped down from the raised corridor and 
with his stick he began poking the bits of paper into 
the powdery mud which was all that at present formed 
the estancia garden. 

“ I believe we might paper the whole house with 
Purvis’s telegrams,” he said laughing as he shoved 
a bit of coloured paper under the ground. 

“ Salter — ” he said to himself — “ Salter, it 
sounds like the Agony column at home. 

Well, Ross and I had better stop acting as scaven- 
gers for the household, or we might learn too much 
of Purvis’s domestic affairs.” 

He stopped poking with his stick, and although 
he laughed he was as much annoyed at having seen 
the name of the telegram as he would have been 
had he inadvertently seen another man’s hand at 
cards. 

The storm blew away in the night, and in the 
morning the sky was a heavenly blue. Its colour 
was so brilliant that it would not be overlooked, and 
the sky became an enveloping, assertive, conspicuous 
fact, instead of the dim and distant grey thing of 
which so little notice is taken at home. In the early 
morning the mimosa trees threw cool shadows to the 
westward, and the little parakeets, making short 
flights from bough to bough, screamed overhead. 
There was some early work in the estancia to be done ; 
there were cattle to be rounded up, and there was work 


290 


PETER AND JANE 


in the corral. Someone had to lasso a novillo for 
the pot, and the rodeo looked like a seething, bubbling 
caldron, with its moving mass of cattle. The easy 
paces of the horses which they rode made riding a 
matter not of exercise at all, and the only thing nec- 
essary was to duck heads to avoid the mimosa boughs, 
and to guide the horses round the holes and stumps 
in the ground at an easy canter. The novillo was las- 
soed, and the sun began to be sultry when the three 
men rode back to breakf ast, congratulating themselves 
that as the day seemed likely to be as hot as usual 
there was not a great deal of work to be done, at 
least until the cool of the evening. 

“ There is that unholy little brute again,” said 
Ross as they approached the house, and tethered their 
horses by the simple expedient of throwing their reins 
over their heads and letting them trail upon the 
ground. 

“ Is it Purvis?” asked Toffy. “When in the 
name of the Prophet does that fellow sleep!” It 
was barely ten o’clock when they rode back to break- 
fast, and Purvis must have started on his ride almost 
at dawn. 

“ Hullo ! ” said Ross, greeting him with a certain 
kindliness which a very big man will show to one 
who is small and weak, even if he has growled at his 
appearance a moment before. “ Hullo, Purvis, where 
have you come from, and when do you get any 
sleep ? 


PETER AND JANE 


291 


“ I don’t think that sleep is very necessary to me,” 
said Purvis ; “ and I generally find that I work just 
as well when I have only two or three hours’ rest.” 

“ That’s very odd,” said Toffy amicably. 

“ I came back about my little boy,” said Purvis ; 
“ I have to go down to Buenos Ayres, and I want to 
know if I may leave him here with you.” Ross 
assented, and Toffy remarked that he believed with 
training he himself might make a very fair nursery 
maid. 

“ Things are a little bit disturbed at my place,” 
said Purvis ; “ I have so many mixed nationalities 
down there, and they don’t get on well together, and 
are difficult to manage, and I would rather not leave 
Dick, if you could have him. Dick will be a good 
boy, no ? ” he said, speaking in the questioning nega- 
tive so common in Argentina, and addressing the 
pale-faced little boy in a manner far too babyish for 
his years. Dick made no promise, but feeling, boy- 
like, that he never knew quite what being good in- 
volved, wriggled uneasily in his chair. His father 
laid one of his hands on the boy’s dark hair and the 
other beneath the delicately-pointed chin and, turning 
up the little face towards him, he kissed it with a 
sort of womanish affection. 

“When will you get the train?” said Ross pres- 
ently, as they sat at breakfast in the hall; “ you can’t 
catch the one to-night, and there’s not another for 
two days. Your best plan would have been to send 


292 


PETER AND JANE 


us a wire about the boy, and to have taken your own 
steamer down to Taco; it would have saved a long 
bit of riding.” 

“ I wanted to say good-bye to my little one,” said 
Purvis. 

“ Well,” said Ross hospitably, “ you are welcome 
here till your train starts.” 

“ I must be off to-night,” said Purvis ; “ if I start 
at eight this evening I will catch the train at one a. m. 
at Taco.” 

“You will be dead, Purvis,” said Peter. He dis- 
liked the man and his tortuous ways, but his imper- 
viousness to fatigue won his admiration. Chance had 
once said that Purvis was the only man he knew who 
had no sense of fatigue, and no sense of fear. “ It’s 
quite true,” he said, when there was a murmur of 
astonishment from his listeners, “ and much as I dis- 
like the man I have never known him to be afraid 
of anything. It may, of course, be due to a lack 
of imagination on his part, but I myself believe that 
it is the result of having been so frequently in tight 
places. I don’t believe he can even handle a gun, 
and if he was surrounded and mobbed, he would prob- 
ably only blink with his watery eyes, or help himself 
to another tabloid.” 

“ I shall do very nicely, thanks,” said Purvis in 
his thin, high voice. He left his horse in the cool 
of the paraiso trees during the day, and a peon 
brought it to the door after Purvis had eaten a frugal 
dinner, during which meal he attended far more to 


PETER AND JANE 


293 


the wants of his child than to his own, warning him 
in a way that worried the boy about being careful 
of the stones in plum jam. 

After dinner Peter cut some sandwiches for him, 
and gave him a flask of whisky, a piece of hospitality 
which he would in all probability have offered a man 
who was going to hang him. He had been nurse and 
guardian in one to Toffy at Eton, and his long care 
of the delicate boy had given him an odd sort of 
thoughtfulness which showed itself in small and 
homely acts like this. He fussed sometimes, but his 
affection for those people he cared about was very 
deep, and he was one of those unfortunate beings who, 
while they believe that all the rest of the world is 
quite safe and going along very nicely, always in- 
variably imagine that those whom they love are ex- 
posed to unusual perils. 

“ When I return from Buenos Ayres,” said Purvis, 
“ I shall be able to put the facts before you which 
will identify Edward Ogilvie.” 

“You are quite sure you have got them?” said 
Peter briefly. 

“ I am quite sure,” said Purvis. 

“ Of course,” said Peter, “ you understand that all 
the facts that you bring before me will have to be 
thoroughly investigated by my lawyers ? ” He was 
half sorry that he had spoken sharply when Purvis 
replied with his usual meekness : “ That goes without 
saying.” 

“ I dislike anything sensational,” Peter went on 


294 


PETER AND JANE 


coolly, 44 and this is a case in which I much prefer 
that all evidence which you get shall be brought direct 
to me. To be suddenly confronted with my brother 
might be very interesting from the point of view of 
the Adelphi audience, but then you see we are not 
in a theatre at present.” 

Purvis’s face looked meeker than usual, and slip- 
ping his fingers into his waistcoat pocket he helped 
himself to two little tabloids in much the same way 
in which another man in a moment of strain might 
toss off a glass of brandy. He swallowed his dose 
with a visible movement of his prominent throat, and 
said, with his unfailing politeness: 44 The facts in 
this case are quite exceptional; you will allow this, 
I think, when you know them, and you will then 
appreciate the fact that it was necessary to get the 
whole of the evidence quite clearly established before 
making the final results known to you.” 

44 We have hardly time to argue the subject,” said 
Peter, 44 seeing that your pony is at the door. The 
solicitor in Buenos Ayres, whom Sir John Falconer 
recommended to me, will meet you here any day you 
like to name, and we can go into the matter thor- 
oughly with you together.” 

44 That would be the most satisfactory plan,” said 
Purvis, raising his weak eyes to Peter. 44 Mean- 
while,” he said, 44 my expenses in this matter have 
been considerable; perhaps you would kindly look at 
my account before starting? ” 

44 No,” said Peter shortly, 44 1 could not; I am not 


PETER AND JANE 


295 


in the habit of looking over my accounts by moon- 
light in the garden.” 

“ A hundred pounds on account,” said Purvis, 
“ would enable me to bring this important matter to 
a conclusion. Without that, I fear I am powerless.” 

It ended in Toffy and Peter putting their available 
cash together, and giving Purvis seventy pounds, and 
the clerkly man of ink produced a stamp and a stylo- 
graphic pen from his pocket and made out the receipt 
in full on the little dining-room table, and handed it 
to Peter. 

“ Thank you,” said Peter, relenting a little. He 
despised himself for the sense of irritation that this 
man produced in him; after all, he had asked him 
for his assistance and Purvis was giving it to the best 
of his ability. He went as far as the door with him, 
and said : “ If the claim is established by this man, 
remember, I should like to see him as soon as possible. 
Wire to me all particulars, and be so good as to con- 
vey to him that we are anxious to do the right thing 
by him. I should not like him to feel, for instance, 
that the fact of his existence was any cause of resent- 
ment with any of us.” 

“ It is he, perhaps, who will feel resentment,” said 
Purvis. 

“ Perhaps,” said Peter, resisting an inclination to 
speed Purvis’s departure with the schoolboy’s rough- 
and-ready method of a kick. 

Toffy was hovering about the dining-room waiting 
for him as he turned and went into the house again, 


296 


PETER AND JANE 


and he put his hand on his shoulder, for he was a 
much taller man than Peter, and said, 44 This is a 
bit rough on you, Peter.” And Peter assented with 
a nod. 

The two men went into the little drawing-room to 
collect pillows for the long chairs in the corridor 
where they were going to sleep, and Peter went to a 
side table to turn low a lamp which was adding to 
the heat of the room. 44 1 say ! ” he said, 44 didn’t 
you mean these letters to go ? ” 

44 Haven’t my letters gone? ” said Toffy. “ How 
on earth were they forgotten? ” 

44 Toffy,” said Peter, 44 when I meet you acting as 
a sandwich man in Piccadilly without a rag to your 
back or a shilling to your name, I shall say nothing 
more encouraging to you than, 4 It was just what I 
expected ! ’ ” 

44 But Ross always told me to leave my letters here 
when I wanted them posted ! ” said Toffy, scratching 
his head. 

44 It’s an extraordinary thing,” said Peter, 44 that 
you ever have a pillow to lay your head on, and you 
don’t get that unless I heave it at you and prevent 
other fellows grabbing it! Who’s got your motor- 
car at home now? Someone, I suppose, you lent it 
to, and from whom you won’t a bit like to ask it 
back. Are you getting any rent at all for Hul- 
worth?” he went on, his wrath increasing as he 
spoke, 44 or are you letting it slide for a bit because 
your tenants are hard up? Would you have a pic- 


PETER AND JANE 


297 


ture, or a bit of cracked china, or a bottle of wine 
left, if they had not been all tied up by some cunning 
ancestor, and looked after by his executors? What 
has become of your horses, and why are you always 
put to sleep in the billiard room of a hotel, or in the 
pantry, when other fellows get a decent bed provided 
for them? Why do they give you a room over the 
stables when country houses are full, where the coach- 
man’s wife asks you if you would like a little hot 
water in the morning, and regrets that the chimney 
doesn’t draw very well. . . . You were bom that 

way, I suppose,” finished Peter hoplessly ; “ I don’t 
believe you were ever allowed a cradle if your nurse 
wanted it for anyone else! ” 

“ Oh, I rub along all right ! ” said Toffy cheer- 
fully. 

“ You can’t bluster, or assert yourself,” went on 
Peter, still fussing. He was always bothering about 
his friend; and Mrs. Ogilvie used to think, when he 
was a boy, the self-imposed burden of Toffy’s troubles 
was almost too much of a care to him. Toffy’s worst 
and most serious illnesses at Eton were times of sheer 
agony to the elder boy. No one ever knew how he 
suffered. But the matron of the house, seeing his 
pale face, used to send him messages frequently to 
say how Christopherson was getting on, and Peter’s 
tutor — who was a man of some insight — allowed a 
good many shaky construes to pass unnoticed in those 
days. Later, when they were in the same regiment 
together, Peter would lose his temper with Toffy for 


298 


PETER AND JANE 


playing polo in the sun when he had a touch of fever 
on him; and he annoyed those who tried to sell him 
bad horses, or who borrowed his money and lived lav- 
ishly at his expense, by deliberately preventing this 
going for very long. They had served in South 
Africa together, and when Toffy was in hospital he 
had looked after him when he could, and had tried to 
get him such comforts as the poor place afforded. 
For it was proverbial of Nigel Christopherson that 
whenever there was not enough of anything, it was 
he who by common consent went without. Peter was 
the terror of orderlies and nurses in those days, and 
spoke his mind quite dangerously freely to grey- 
haired P. M. O.’s, and would have tackled a general 
himself, if it had seemed in Toffy’s interest to do so. 

“ Look here,” he said, “ I know these letters are 
important, and I tell you what I’ll do : I’ll ride with 
them after Purvis and get him to post them; he’ll 
ride down to Taco in time to catch the mail, and I 
can easily overtake him on the Bayo.” 

The Englishmen had learned to call their horses 
after their different shades of colour, in the usual 
Argentina way, and the one Peter spoke of was a big 
dun-coloured brute, three parts English-bred. 

Toffy protested, but Peter was obstinate. He had 
been worried and unsettled all day, and he believed 
that it would be a good thing to let off steam by a 
ride over the camp ; besides which, Toffy’s letters had 
taken a good two hours to write, and Peter guessed 
they were important. He could easily overtake 


PETER AND JANE 


899 


Purvis with them before he should reach La Dorada. 

66 I’ll sit up and trim the lamp like a faithful 
wife, till you return,” said Toffy. 

“ You’ll go to bed, you ass! ” shouted Peter. He 
was outside the house fastening the girths of his 
horse as he spoke and now he swung himself into the 
saddle and sent his horse forward with the quick 
movement of a hunting man. 

The long ride in the moonlight did him good. The 
intensity of the clear light had something strange 
and wonderful in it, touched with unearthliness. 
Night with its thousand secrets whispered about him, 
and he felt very small and insignificant riding alone 
under the great silvery dome of heaven, hushed with 
a sense of far away, and with the mystery of its in- 
numerable stars. Now and then he came across a 
herd of cattle standing feeding in the short grass of 
the damp, their shadows showing black beside them; 
or a startled tropillo of horses would start at the 
sound of the Bayo’s hoofs. He took a short cut 
through the mimosa woods where the ground was 
uneven. His horse picked its way unfalteringly as 
it cantered forward, though Peter had to stoop very 
often to save his head from touching the low branches 
of the trees. Overhead some parakeets, disturbed in 
their slumbers, flew from tree to tree, their green 
wings and tiny red heads turning to strange colours 
in the moonlight. He got away through one of the 
rough gates of the estancia, out into the open camp 
again, where the earth was full of a vast stillness 


300 


PETER AND JANE 


about him, and the stars pulsated overhead to the 
unspeakable music of the night. 

And now he began to expect every minute to over- 
take Purvis, and he strained his eyes eagerly for the 
solitary figure of the horseman. He knew he was 
riding a much better horse than the one Purvis was 
on, and still he failed to overtake him. The track 
on which he rode was clear enough, and his horse 
knew the way to La Dorada as well as any peon on 
the place. He took out his watch and looked at it 
in the moonlight. It was not a quarter to twelve 
and he was already at the little settlement close by 
the river where some Italians and Spaniards lived. 
He recognised one of the ill-built small huts as the 
place where Juan Lara dwelt, and he drew up to ask 
whether Purvis was ahead of him or not, and whether 
his boy had started with his mail-bag for the train 
yet. A Spaniard with a dark face answered his 
knock, and told him that no one had passed that way 
to-night, also that his boy had left much earlier in 
the afternoon with mail-bags. He suggested that 
the traveller should come inside and wait until his 
friend should overtake him, and as there was plenty 
of time Peter resolved to rest his horse for a time, 
and then to push on to La Dorada if Purvis did not 
turn up. Lara’s wife came to beg him enter. She 
was an old woman before her time, and had reared a 
large family in the tiny confines of this little hut. 
Peter instinctively took off his soft felt hat, and 


PETER AND JANE 


301 


stooping below the low doorway, he came inside. 
The Spanish language was an inherited instinct with 
him from his mother, and he made what conversation 
he could, first of all congratulating Lara’s wife on 
her skill in washing shirts, and then making such 
remarks as his vocabulary permitted. 

It was a poor enough place he had entered, with a 
mud floor, entirely devoid of furniture, save for a 
ramshackle bedstead with spotless linen upon it and 
a couple of chairs. But there was a tiny shrine with 
an image of the Virgin in the corner of the room; 
before it burned a half-penny night light, and round 
it were ranged in a row a number of paper match- 
boxes with little coloured pictures upon them. They 
were French match-boxes, which opened with a spring 
formed of elastic, and underneath the pictures were 
jokes of a doubtful description. But neither the 
Spanish host nor hostess knew anything of the French 
language; the empty paper match-boxes with the 
horrible jokes upon them were offered faithfully be- 
fore the shrine. They were the best they had to give, 
and they were the only decorations in the room. The 
gaudy prints were beautified by the tiny taper which 
burned before the shrine and, who knows, their offer- 
ing may have been beautified in like manner by the 
faith with which it was given? 

The woman dusted a chair for Peter, and set the 
other for her husband, and she herself sat down upon 
the edge of the bed. They were both glad of visitors 


30 2 


PETER AND JANE 


at whatever hour they arrived, and in the solitary life 
of the camp a belated horseman may often ride up 
after dusk. 

Peter explained that it was Senor Purvis, who 
owned the big estancia down at La Dorada, whom 
he was riding to overtake. 

“ He had better not ride about too much alone,” 
said the Spaniard. “ There are some long knives 
about, and the Senor is a short man.” 

“What is the trouble on the estate?” said Peter; 
but he could get no information from the Spaniard. 
“ He had better take care,” the man said. “ Senor 
Purvis would be safer if he was to sail away in his 
steamer and be gone for a month or two.” 

“ He has a mixed lot of men on his estancia, has 
he not? ” Peter asked. 

“ Yes,” said the man, “ but they are mostly Span- 
ish, and the Senor, for all his Spanish tongue, has 
not got a heart that understands the people.” 

“ You don’t think anything can have happened to 
him ? ” Peter asked. 

He reflected that the road was an open one all the 
way, and he must have seen if there had been any- 
thing like a disturbance; but in the end a certain 
apprehension for the safety of the man made him 
think that he had better push on and hear if there 
was any news of him at La Dorada. There might 
be some path or track to the river side of which he 
knew nothing, and if that bypath existed, Purvis 
would certainly take it, however circuitous it might 


PETER AND JANE 


303 


be. There seemed to be some curious obliquity about 
him which made for crooked ways, and in any case 
Peter did not want to miss the mail with Toffy’s let- 
ters. He said good-night, and hearing no news of 
the traveller at the quay, he rode on until he reached 
the small unfenced railway station at Taco, set down 
apparently promiscuously on the grey, arid plain. 
There Lara’s boy was waiting with his mail-bag, and 
after a time the sleepy station-master began to bestir 
himself, and a cart came in with five horses harnessed 
abreast carrying some freight for the train. Still 
there was no sign of Purvis, and Peter had to give 
his letters to the guard, when at last with a shrill 
whistle the train came into the station. 

It was very odd, he reflected, and he began to 
wonder whether Purvis was all right, and to be vaguely 
disturbed by what the people in the hut had said to 
him. Ross had told him many tales of how English- 
men had been murdered out here; there was the case 
of poor Wentworth, whose Spanish wife had held him 
down when he had tried to escape, and whose own 
major-domo had shot him at the door. There was 
the other case of young Seely, who was found one 
morning with his throat cut, and his pillow drenched 
with blood. No one knew anything of the matter, 
of course. The Spaniards keep their secrets well. 
No one was ever brought to justice, and the affair, 
which would have made a sensation at home, only hor- 
rified a few English neighbours near the estancia. 
Even they had little to say, but that young Seely 


304 


PETER AND JANE 


had never understood the jealousy of the Spanish tem- 
perament, and had never realised that Spanish women 
are kept in a seclusion almost like the purdah ladies 
of India, and are not supposed to converse with men. 
As for Wentworth, he had too much money in the 
house always ; everyone had warned him about it, and 
at last the inevitable thing had happened. 

But the feeling against Purvis seemed to be some- 
thing much deeper than personal jealousy, or mere 
greed for gold dollars. There was a storm brewing 
about him, and no one knew when it would burst. 

“ Purvis will have to look out,” reflected Peter ; 
and he wondered where on earth the man had got to 
to-night. He wished he could give him some sort 
of warning, but he reflected to himself that Purvis 
knew far more about the state of affairs than he, 
Peter, did. You could not tell Purvis much about 
Argentina that he did not know already. His vague 
feeling of suspicion against the man deepened, and 
he began to wonder what game Purvis was playing. 
Had the man in Rosario paid him well to do his work 
for him, or was Purvis withholding information until 
a certain price was paid? Bowshott was worth a 
ransom, and Purvis might be playing a double game. 
Between the two men he might feather his nest very 
well. 

The dawn was breaking as Peter rode slowly home- 
wards, and a pale pink light was in the sky. His 
horse ambled slowly along, never mistaking his way 
or making a false step on the rough, uneven ground, 


PETER AND JANE 


305 


but swinging along at an easy canter and getting 
over an immense distance without much distress to 
himself. The moon, in a sort of hushed silence, was 
climbing down the arc of heaven as the sun rose to 
eastward. The pale light touched the surface of a 
tajamar as he rode past it, and the trees beside it 
threw still, sad, faint shadows into its quiet depth. 
Over the western monta a lordly eagle with hushed 
wings rose majestically overhead, and some biscachos 
popped in a noiseless way in and out of their holes. 
The air was cool and fresh now, and some trees began 
to rise up unexpectedly out of the ground in the 
grey light. 

He began to get sleepy with the easy motion of 
the horse and the endless line of plain around him 
was wearying to the eye as the sun rose upon it. 
Well, he was getting into camp before it was very 
hot, and that idiot Toffy would probably be sitting 
up for him. He never seemed to rest like other men. 
If you roused the house in the middle of the night, 
you would probably find Toffy undisturbed, lying in 
bed and reading the Bible. 

He laughed softly to himself as he saw a flicker 
of light in the window that looked towards the plain 
track, when at last he drew near the little estancia 
house. It was like Toffy to remember to put a lamp 
where he could see it. What a good chap he was, 
thought Peter; one of the best! It was worth while 
taking a ride for him in the middle of the night, 
although he had had a very good notion of what was 


306 


PETER AND JANE 


in one of the letters and entirely disapproved of its 
contents. The last mail had brought news that 
Horace Avory was ill, and Peter knew quite well that 
Toffy had written to Mrs. Avory. Of course she 
was not the wife for him; she was very delicate and 
no longer very young, and she had a plain little 
daughter of ten years old. Still, Peter supposed 
that the marriage might turn out pretty well in spite 
of obvious drawbacks; and Heaven knew that Mrs. 
Avory in her own sad, tearful way had fought very 
bravely against poverty and loneliness and unhappi- 
ness, and that she loved Toffy with her whole heart. 
But why, now that things seemed to be arranging 
themselves in a satisfactory manner, should Toffy look 
miserable and lie awake during the greater part of 
the hot nights? 

He drew up at the door of the estancia house when 
the sun was becoming hot, and Toffy appeared in a 
pyjama suit and prepared a cup of coffee on a stove 
of patent construction, for which he claimed admira- 
tion every time it was used. 

“ Thanks, Peter,” he said briefly. “ I was writing 
to Mrs. Avory this mail, and she would have been 
disappointed if she had not heard from me. Did you 
overtake Purvis?” 

“No, I didn’t,” said Peter, drawing off his brown 
riding-boots and stretching his legs ; “ and what’s 
more, he didn’t go by the mail train to Buenos 
Ayres ! ” ’ 

“ What a queer chap that is ! ” said Toffy. “ You 


PETER AND JANE 


307 


never know where to have him ! . . . That 

can’t be he returning now,” he said, looking from the 
small window at two riders who came cantering up to 
the door. 

“ No, it isn’t,” said Peter, going over to the win- 
dow in his stocking soles ; “ but I’ll tell you who it 
is, though ! It’s Dunbar, and he’s got a commisario 
with him! Now what in the name of wonder do they 
want here ! ” 

The two riders dismounted at the gate and came 
up the little path through the garden to the door. 
They walked stiffly, as though they had ridden for a 
long time, and their horses, tethered by the gate, 
looked used up and tired. 

Dunbar hardly paused to shake hands. “ Look 
here,” he said, “ E. W. Smith is here, and he’s 
wanted ! ” 


CHAPTER XV 


“ First of all,” said Peter, “ who is E. W. Smith, 
and why the Dickens should you imagine he is here ? ” 

Dunbar gave him a long look. “ Is anyone here ? ” 
he said. 

“ No one but Ross and Christopherson and I,” said 
Peter. “ Purvis was here, but he started for Buenos 
Ayres last night, and I have no idea where he is now. 
I saw the train start from the station at Taco, but 
he was not in it.” 

“ Purvis is in a tight place,” said Dunbar drily. 

Ross, hearing voices in the drawing-room, had 
wakened up, and now appeared with ruffled hair and 
still clad in his sleeping suit. He suggested refresh- 
ments, and sat down to hear what Dunbar had to say. 

Peter’s face had a set look upon it; where another 
man might perhaps have asked questions, he showed 
something of his mother’s reserve, and was never more 
silent than when a moment of strain arrived. He 
began in a mechanical kind of way to make two fresh 
cups of coffee, and poured the steaming mixture from 
the tin saucepan into the cups. “ The day of reckon- 
ing seems to have arrived for Purvis,” he said, and 
then added lazily : “ Poor brute, he had his points.” 
He began to smoke a cigarette, and the thought struck 
him that probably Purvis was a common adventurer 

after all, and that he had got close upon two hun- 
308 


PETER AND JANE 


309 


dred pounds from him on the plea of having some 
knowledge of his brother which was simply non- 
existent. He could see the whole thing now. This 
cock-and-bull story of the missing man having been 
discovered was really a very simple ruse for getting 
money, and the last seventy pounds which he, Peter, 
had been fool enough to pay him had been wanted 
to help Purvis to get away. 

44 I must search the place thoroughly,” said Dun- 
bar. He finished his coffee, but the matter of ascer- 
taining whether or not anyone was concealed in the 
little estancia house or in the outbuildings was a 
matter of only a few minutes. 

44 If he’s got away again,” said Dunbar, 44 I’ll eat 
my hat!” 

44 Purvis is a slippery customer,” said Ross ; 44 but 
he has lived here peaceably for a considerable time. 
If he is wanted, you have only to ride up to his door 
and arrest him.” 

Dunbar cleared his throat : 44 You mind,” he said, 
44 the story of the Rosana , which I told you on 
board the Royal Mail Packet, when we were in the 
river Plata coming up to Montevideo ? ” 

44 I remember,” said Peter briefly. And Ross 
nodded his head also ; everyone in Argentina knew 
the story of the wreck of the Rosana. 

44 I knew,” said Dunbar, 44 that E. W. Smith could 
not die ! ” 

44 Smith being Purvis, I take it,” said Toffy. 

44 Yes,” said Dunbar, 44 or any other alias you 


310 


PETER AND JANE 


please. He is a fair man now with a beard, isn’t he? 
Well, on board the Rosana he was a clean-shaven 
man with dark hair, but you cannot mistake E. W. 
Smith’s eyes, though I hear his voice is altered.” 

4 4 Are you in the police out here?” Peter asked 
with a glance at the commisario to whom he had just 
handed a cup of coffee. 

44 No, Pm not,” answered Dunbar with his usual 
economy of speech. 44 Pm from Scotland Yard, and 
I want E. W. Smith on a minor count. But Pll come 
to that some other time ; I’ll need be off now.” 

44 Your horse is done up,” said Ross, 44 and you 
are pretty well done yourself.” 

44 I’m not that far through,” said Dunbar. 

44 Why not send a wire to Buenos Ayres, and wait 
here till you can get a reply? Purvis may have got 
to the train somewhere else, and be at Buenos Ayres 
now.” 

44 My tale won’t take long in the telling,” said 
Dunbar laconically, when he had despatched his tele- 
gram by one of the peons, who rode off with it across 
the camp. 44 And I’ll keep to the story of the 
Rosana , as time is short. 

44 The Rosana sprang a leak her first day out on 
her run down the coast and was lost in twenty fathoms 
of water. She only carried one boat, and that boat 
was seen by myself half burned, but with a bit of her 
name in gold leaf still visible on her bows. Tranter 
was the captain of the boat, and E. W. Swith was 
clerk and general manager. Everyone knew he 


PETER AND JANE 


311 


cheated the company who ran the boat, and cheated 
the captain, too, when he could, and it generally 
suited him to make Tranter drunk when they were 
in port. Well, he reaped his profit, and I suppose 
a good bit of it lies at the bottom of the sea. He 
was a man who always kept large sums in hand in 
case of finding himself in a tight place. Did I men- 
tion,” said Dunbar, “ that he could not row, though 
of course Tranter could? But Tranter was wanted 
for steering.” 

“ I don’t understand the story,” said Ross, leaning 
forward. “ You say that Tranter and this man 
Purvis or Smith escaped from the wreck, and that 
Purvis could not row ? ” 

“ I am coming to that,” said Dunbar unmoved. 
“ Observe, the Roscma carried one boat. She had 
lost her other by an accident, it seems, and the one 
that remained was not much bigger than one such as 
men use to go to and fro from the shore when they 
are in harbour. Tranter was the first to discover 
that the Rosana was leaking badly; the hold was 
half flooded before anyone knew anything about it, 
and the Rosana was settling by her head. Smith, 
it seemed, and the captain were armed, or armed 
themselves, as soon as the state of affairs was known, 
and before the rest of the crew were awake, four men 
were ordered to man the boat and bring her along- 
side. The hatches were closed down with the rest of 
the crew still below, and if there was a scuffle, two 
armed men were perfectly capable of keeping order. 


312 


PETER AND JANE 


Smith and Tranter got into the boat and were rowed 
ashore in safety ; if the whole of the crew had got 
in there is no doubt about it no one would have been 
saved. For there were many hands on board and 
the rush to the one boat would have swamped her. 
The men who manned the boat and pulled ashore were 
doubtless glad to save their lives at any price, but 
they might make it exceedingly unpleasant for the 
two survivors of the wreck did they make their story 
known. They were natives whose lives were of no 
great value to anyone but themselves, and there was 
an easy way for two armed men to silence them on 
a lonely shore without a soul near them.” 

44 It’s a sickening story,” said Ross, getting up 
and walking towards the window; his face was flushed 
a little, and he unconsciously clenched his big hand. 

44 Then how,” said Peter keenly, 44 has the story 
leaked out?” 

44 Because,” said Dunbar, 44 sometimes at a critical 
moment men do their work badly ; or perhaps a native 
knows how to feign death before his life is actually 
extinct. Dead men tell no lies, but wounded men 
don’t have their tongues tied in the same way.” 

44 So one of the men lived to tell tales?” said 
Peter, leaning forward in his chair; 44 and Purvis, 
who has been here for some time past, is the hero 
of the story? It is a blackguardly tale, Dunbar, 
and, thank God, I believe it would have been impos- 
sible in England.” 

44 1 don’t pass judgment on my fellow men,” said 


PETER AND JANE 


313 

Dunbar. “ Life is sweet perhaps to some of us, and 
no doubt the whole crew would have swamped the 
boat, but — ” 

“ — But all the same,” said Toffy, “ you don’t 
mean to let Purvis-Smith get a very light time when 
you do get him.” 

“ No, I don’t,” said Dunbar. 

Ross went out through the door of the little draw- 
ing-room on to the corridor, and went to see about 
some work on the farm. The commisario drank his 
coffee, and Dunbar waited restlessly for his telegram. 

After breakfast he and Peter slept for a time, for 
both were dog tired, and the day was oppressively 
hot. In the afternoon a telegram came to say that 
no news had been heard of Purvis, and he was be- 
lieved to be still in the neighbourhood of La Dorada. 

“ If he is,” said Dunbar, folding up the telegram 
and putting it into his pocket, “ I think our future 
duties will be light. The man who has come to light 
and told the story of the wreck of the Rosana 
is a native of that favoured spot where already our 
friend Purvis is not too popular. God help the man, 
if they get hold of him ! ” 

“ His little boy is here now,” said Toffy, starting 
up; “ he came here to leave him in safety.” 

Dunbar was writing another telegram to know the 
whereabouts of the steamer. 

“ Then,” he said, “ the story is probably known, 
and Purvis is aware of it and has gone north; he 
daren’t show himself near his estancia after this.” 


314 


PETER AND JANE 


They began to put the story together, piecing it 
here and there, while Dunbar continued to send tele- 
grams, and Ross strolled in presently to discuss the 
matter again. 

“ I don’t believe,” he said, “ Purvis is far off.” 

“ He is a brave man if he is anywhere near La 
Dorada,” said Dunbar. 

“ Purvis is a brave man,” said Ross quietly. 

Peter was silent. Only last night he had had good 
reason to believe that the mystery of his brother’s 
existence was going to be cleared up. But with 
Purvis gone, the whole wearisome business would have 
to begin again. Why had he not detained the man 
last night, even if he had had to do it by force, until 
he had given him all the evidence he possessed? He 
could not exactly blame himself for not having done 
so. Purvis had declared that he was only going to 
Buenos Ayres for a couple of days, and it would have 
been absurd to delay him that he might give evidence 
which perhaps he did not possess. Still, the thing 
had been too cleverly worked out to be altogether a 
fraud surely. His thought worked back again to 
the belief that Purvis had got hold of his brother, 
and had extracted a great deal of information from 
him, and was only delaying to make him known to 
Peter until he had made the best bargain he could for 
himself. Looking back on all the talks they had had 
together, there was something that convinced him that 
Purvis’s close application to the search had not been 
made with a view only of extracting some hundreds 


PETER AND JANE 


315 


of pounds from him, but that the man’s game was 
deeper than that. Purvis was far too clever a man 
to waste his talents in dabbling in paltry matters, 
or in securing a small sum of money for himself. 
He was a man who worked in big figures, and it was 
evident that he meant to pull off a good thing. 

That his dishonesty was proved was beyond all 
manner of doubt, and the only thing was to watch 
events and to see what would now happen. If Purvis 
gave them the slip, what was to be done in the future? 

“ I believe he will try to save his steamer,” said 
Ross after a long silence. 

Everyone was thinking of the same subject, and 
his abrupt exclamation needed no explanation. 

“ If he could trust his hands he might,” said the 
commisario in halting broken English ; “ but I doubt 
if they have been paid lately.” 

“ Besides, on the steamer,” said Toffy, “ he could 
be easily caught.” 

“ Yes,” said Dunbar, 66 if he knows that we want 
to catch him, which he doesn’t. He is afraid of the 
people at La Dorada now, but he is probably unaware 
of the warm welcome that awaits him in Buenos 
Ayres.” 

Dunbar went to the door again to see if there was 
any sign of his messenger returning from the tele- 
graph office. The sun was flaming to westward, and 
Hopwood had moved the dinner table out into the 
patio, and was setting dinner there. 

“ He will do the unexpected thing,” said Ross at 


316 


PETER AND JANE 


last. “ If Purvis even says he is going to sit up late, 
I know that is the one night of the week he will go 
to bed early.” 

They went out into the patio, and Ross swizzled 
a cocktail, and they fell to eating dinner; but Dunbar 
was looking at his watch from time to time, and then 
turning his glance eastward to the track where his 
messenger might appear. And it was an odd thing, 
and one of which they were all unaware, that even 
a slight noise made each man raise his head alertly 
for a moment as though he might expect an attack. 

The sun went down, and still no messenger ap- 
peared. They sat down to play bridge in the little 
drawing-room and pretended to be interested in the 
fall of the cards. 

44 That must be my telegram now,” said Dunbar, 
starting to his feet as a horse’s hoofs were plainly 
heard in the stillness of the solitary camp. 

44 Well, I’m damned,” he said. He held the flimsy 
paper close to his near-sighted eyes, and read the 
message to the other men sitting at the table: 

44 Smith or Purvis at present on board his own 
steamer in mid-stream opposite La Dorada. Fully 
armed and alone. Crew have left and peons in revolt. 
A detachment of police proceeds by train to Taco 
to-night; join them there and await instructions.” 

44 I thought he would stick to the steamer,” said 
Ross at last. 

“ And probably,” said Dunbar, 44 he is as safe 
there as anywhere he can be. He can’t work his boat 


PETER AND JANE 


317 


without a crew, but if he is armed he will be able 
to defend himself even if he is attacked. I don’t 
know how many boats there are at La Dorada, but 
I would lay my life that Purvis took the precaution 
of sending them adrift or wrecking them before he 
got away.” 

“ What is to be the next move? ” said Peter. 

66 1 shall not stir a finger to help the little brute ! ” 
said Ross. “ Lynch law is too good for him! ” 

“ I suppose we shall have to ride down to Taco 
to-night,” said Dunbar ; “ yon man,” he finished in 
his nonchalant voice, “ has given me a good bit of 
trouble in his time ! ” 

“ It seems to me,” said Ross, “ that you can’t touch 
any business connected with Purvis without handling 
a pretty unsavoury thing.” 

“Now I’ll tell you an odd thing,” said Dunbar: 
“ I have had to make some pretty close enquiries 
about Purvis since I have been on his track, and you 
will probably not believe it if I tell you that by birth 
he is a gentleman.” 

“ He behaves like one ! ” said Ross shortly. 

“ If I had time,” said Dunbar, “ I could tell you 
the story, but you will have to lend me and the com- 
misario fresh horses, and we must get away to Taco. 
I will finish my yam another time,” he said, as he saw 
a servant entering the room. 

He went out into the night to see about the saddling 
of the horses. 

“ A boy,” said Hopwood, “ rode over with this, 


318 


PETER AND JANE 


this moment, sir.” He presented a note to Peter on 
a little tray and waited in the detached manner of the 
well-trained servant while Peter opened the letter. 

The writing was almost unintelligible, being writ- 
ten on a scrap of paper in pencil, and it had got 
crushed in the pocket of the man who brought it. 

u It is for Dunbar, I expect,” said Peter, looking 
doubtfully at the name on the cover. He walked 
without haste to a table where a lamp stood, and 
looked more closely at the address. “ No, it’s all 
right, it’s for me,” he said. 

At first it was the vulgar melodrama of the message 
which struck him most forcibly with a sense of dis- 
taste and disgust, and then he flicked the piece of 
paper impatiently and said : “ I don’t believe a word 
of it!” His face was white, however, as he turned 
to the servant and said : “ Who brought this P ” 

“ I will go and see, sir,” said Hopwood, and left 
the room. 

Peter, with the scrap of paper in his hand, walked 
over to the bridge-table, where the others were sitting, 
and laid the crumpled note in front of them. 

“ Another trick of our friend Purvis,” he said 
shortly. 

The three men at the card-table bent their heads 
over the crumpled piece of note-paper spread out 
before them. Ross smoothed out its edges with his 
big hand, and the words became distinct enough ; the 
very brevity of the message was touched with sensa- 
tionalism. “ I am your brother; save me” it ran ; 


PETER AND JANE 319 

and there was not another vestige of writing on the 
paper. 

“ Purvis has excelled himself,” said Ross quietly. 
“ It’s your deal, Christopherson.” 

Toffy mechanically shuffled the cards and looked 
up into his friend’s face. 66 Is there anything more? ” 
he said, and Peter took up the dirty envelope and 
examined it more closely. 

There was a scrap of folded paper in one corner 
and on it was written in his mother’s handwriting a 
little note, such as a mother might write to a baby 
son whose nurse might read the missive aloud to the 
child, telling him that it was from Mamma. 

Peter flushed hotly as he read it. 

“ He has no business to bring my mother’s name 
into it,” he said savagely; and then the full force 
of the thing smote him as he realised that perhaps 
his mother was the mother of this man Ptirvis, too. 

“ Have a drink,” said Ross with a pretence at 
gruffness. It was oppressively hot, and Peter had 
been riding all the previous night. Ross mentioned 
these facts in a kindly voice to account for his loss 
of colour. “ It’s a ridiculous try on,” he said with 
conviction; and then seeking about for an excuse 
to leave the two friends together to discuss the matter, 
he gathered up the cards from the table, added up 
the score in an elaborate manner and announced his 
intention of going to bed. 

Dunbar and the commisario looked in for a moment 
from the work of saddling their horses to bid them 


PETER AND JANE 


good-bye. The commisario began to talk in Spanish 
to Toffy, and Peter drew Dunbar aside and, laying 
his hand on his shoulder, said, in the drawling voice 
which he used where another man would have showed 
excitement: “ Tell me the rest of that yarn, Dunbar,” 

“ I have hardly a moment to stop,” said the de- 
tective. He looked at his watch, and then walked 
to the door to see if the horses had been brought 
round. “ I wish they would hurry up,” he said, and 
then came back and took up the conversation where 
he had dropped it. 

“ I suppose if that man’s history were written in 
a book, very few people would believe it. No one 
knows where he came from originally, but this much 
I have discovered, that he landed in Argentina when 
he was a child, and at that time there was a large 
sum of money invested for him. So far as I can 
ascertain, he came out here with people to whom he 
did not belong, who died very shortly afterwards of 
a fever which was raging at that time in Rosario. 
It was intended that the child should be handed over 
to some people to whom he belonged, but there was 
too much money in the case, so very naturally he dis- 
appeared. That is all I have been able to find out, 
and now I must be going. I’ll let you know by 
telegram what occurs.” 

“ Thank you,” said Peter ; “ it is an interesting 
story.” 

Dunbar and the commisario rode off, and were soon 
out of sight. The silence of the hot night had settled 


PETER AND JANE 


321 


down with its palpable mysterious weight upon the 
earth. The stars looked farther away than usual in 
the fathomless vault of heaven, and the world slum- 
bered with a feeling of restlessness under the burden 
of the aching solitude of the night. Some insects 
chirped outside the illuminated window pane, as 
though even they would fain have left the large 
splendour of the night outside and sought company 
in the humble room. Time passed noiselessly, undis- 
turbed even by the ticking of a clock. To have 
stirred even in a chair would have seemed to break 
some tangible spell. A dog would have been better 
company than a man at the moment, because less 
influenced by the mysterious night and the silence 
and the intensity of a thought which fixes itself 
relentlessly in some particular cells of the brain, until 
they become fevered and ache horribly. A little puff 
of cooler air began to blow over the baked and with- 
ered camp ; but the room where the lamp was burning 
had become intolerably hot, and the mosquitoes which 
had been contemplating the wall thoughtfully 
throughout the day, began to buzz about and to sing 
in the ears of the two persons who sat there. 

44 Damn these mosquitoes ! ” said Peter, and his 
voice broke the silence of the lonely house oddly. He 
and Toffy had not spoken since Ross had left the 
room, and had not stirred from their chairs. But 
now the feeling of tension seemed to be broken. 
Toffy began to fidget with some things on a little 
table, and opened without thinking about it a carved 


322 


PETER AND JANE 


cedarwood workbox which had remained undisturbed 
until then. He found a little knitted silk sock inside 
it only half finished, and with the knitting needles 
still in it, and he closed the lid of the box again softly. 
Peter walked into the corridor and looked into the 
silver night. There was a mist getting up down 
by the river, and a slight feeling of coolness was in 
the air. He leaned against the wooden framework 
of the wire netting and laid his head on his hands 
for a moment; then he came back to the drawing- 
room. 

“ Do you believe it? ” he said suddenly and sharply. 
<fi I suppose it’s true,” said Toffy. “ God help us, 
Peter ; this is a queer world ! ” 

“ If it were anyone else but Purvis,” said Peter 
with a groan. He had begun to walk restlessly up 
and down, making his tramp as long as possible by 
extending it into the corridor. 

“ And then there is this to be said, Toffy,” he 
said, beginning to speak at the point to which his 
thoughts had taken him — “ there is this to be said : 
Suppose one could get Purvis out of this hole, Dun- 
bar is waiting for him at Taco; he will be tried for 
the affair of the Rosana and other things besides, 
and if he is not hanged, he will spend the next few 
years of his life in prison. It is an intolerable busi- 
ness,” he said, “ and I am not going to move in the 
matter. One can stand most things, but not being 
mixed up in a murder case.” 

He walked out into the corridor and sat down 


PETER AND JANE 


323 


heavily in one of the deck chairs there. There was 
a tumult of thought surging through his mind, and 
sometimes one thing was uppermost, sometimes an- 
other. 

If it were possible to get down the river in a boat 
to the steamer, he thought, there would of course 
be a chance of bringing Purvis back before it was 
light ; but if he did that he would have to start within 
the hour. The nights were short. . . . 

And then again, he would be compounding a 
felony; but in the case of brothers such a law was 
generally put aside, whatever the results might 
be. . . . 

There was very little chance of an escape. 
Everyone’s hand was against Purvis now, and there 
was the vaguest possibility that he could escape to 
England. The heir to Bowshott would be doing his 
time in prison, and that, after all, was the best place 
for him. 

But then he, Peter, was the next heir. That was 
the crux of the whole thing; he, Peter Ogilvie, was 
the next heir. If anything were to happen to his 
brother, he would inherit everything. . . . 

But that again was an absurdity. A man in 
prison, for instance, would not be the inheritor of 
anything. No, his brother must take his chance 
down there on the steamer. He had been in tight 
places before now, and no one knew better how to 
get out of them. He had some money at his com- 
mand — let things take their chance. Yet, if 


324 


PETER AND JANE 


Purvis did not inherit, he, Peter, was the next heir. 

That was the thought that knocked at him to the 
exclusion of nearly everything else — he would ben- 
efit by his brother’s death. Bowshott would be his 
and the place in the Highlands, and Jane and he 
would be married. 

He paused for a moment in his feverish survey of 
events : to think of Jane was to have before one’s 
mind a picture of something absolutely fair and 
straightforward and upright. A high standard of 
honour was not difficult to her; it came as naturally 
as speaking in a well-bred manner, or walking with 
that air of grace and distinction which was char- 
acteristic of her. Such women do not need to preach, 
and seldom do so. Their lives suggest a torch held 
high above the common mirk of life. Peter had never 
imagined for a moment that he was in the least 
degree good enough for her; but all the same, he 
meant to fight for all that he was worth for every 
single good thing that he could get for her. 

His brother even had a son. His nephew was 
in the house now. Peter laughed out loud. The 
boy had a Spanish mother, but if there ever had been 
a marriage between him and her, it could easily be set 
aside. Purvis had been married several times, or 
not at all. Dunbar thought that his real wife was 
an English woman at Rosario. 

As he sat there in the dark, Peter had another 
cause for mirthless laughter. His brother had a 
couple of livings in his gift, if he cared about it. 


PETER AND JANE 


325 


The convict, if he ever came back to his own, might 
hide his past and live in the shadow of the church at 
Culversham. He reflected with a sense of disgust 
that Purvis resembled him in appearance, and he 
wondered if he would ever hold up his head again 
now that he knew that the same blood ran in the veins 
of both, and that this adventurer and murderer with 
his odious, creepy ways and his blood-stained hands 
was a relation of his own. Even apart from that, 
he had time to consider that this man was a thorough 
cad. They all had found it difficult to be civil to 
him. He was a being not of their world at all, and 
ordinary politeness towards him had been difficult. 
Where was there a place for such a person? And 
what in Heaven’s name was the use of rescuing a 
man from one difficulty when he would fall into some- 
thing much worse the next. 

Finally, there was nothing for it but to remain 
inactive and let Purvis escape, if he could, but do 
nothing to help him. Time was getting on now, 
another half-hour, and it would be too late to start. 

Perhaps, the whole real difficulty revolved itself 
round Jane. Jane, as a matter of fact, had taken up 
her position quite close to Peter Ogilvie this evening 
in the dark of the tropical night. There were prob- 
ably devils on the other side of him, but Jane never 
quitted her post. She said nothing, but she looked 
perfectly beautiful, and there was not a line in her 
face which did not suggest something good and true. 

But suppose the man turned out to be an im- 


3 26 


PETER AND JANE 


postor after all? Then Dunbar had better treat 
with him. The chain of evidence was pretty strong ; 
but there might be a break in it. 

He could not go alone down the river ; Ross 
and Toffy and Hopwood would have to come, too, 
to man the four-oared boat, and someone would have 
to steer, because the river was dangerous of naviga- 
tion and full of sandbanks and holes. Why should 
he involve his friends in such an expedition, to save 
a man who had sneaked off from a boat and left his 
friends to perish, and shot in cold blood the men who 
had rowed him to safety? 

Before God he was not going to touch the man, 
nor have anything to do with him! 

More than half an hour had passed, and in twenty 
minutes it would be too late to start. 

Jane drew a little nearer, and just then Toffy laid 
down the book which he had been reading, and strolled 
about the room. Perhaps he wanted to show Peter 
that he was still there and awake, and in some way 
to comfort him by his presence, for he sat down by 
Mrs. Chance’s piano and picked out a tune with one 
of his fingers. 

The devil beside Peter became more imperative, 
and crept up closer, and told him that it was his own 
sense of honour that made him loathe his reputed 
brother, and turn from him in disgust. He said that 
the note that had reached him was all a part of 
Purvis’s horrible sensationalism and his lies, and that 
no earthly notice should be taken of it. And the 


PETER AND JANE 


327 


angel with the brown hair and hazel eyes just stood 
there looking beautiful and splendid. 


Toffy continued to pick out the tune with his fore- 
finger from Mrs. Chance’s book: 



Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; 

The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide; 


It all came bef ore him in a flash : the village church, 
and the swinging oil lamps above the pews. He and 
Jane together in Miss Abingdon’s pew and Mrs. 
Wrottesley playing the old hymn tunes on the little 
organ. He could not remember ever attending very 
particularly to the evening service. He used to fol- 
low it in a very small Prayer Book, and it was quite 
sufficient for him that Jane was with him. He had 
never been a religious man in the ordinary sense of 
the word. He had wished with all his heart when his 
mother died that he had known more about these 
things, but they had never seemed a necessary part 
of his life. He knew the code of an English gentle- 
man, and that code was a high one. His colonel 
would have staked his reputation on Peter’s char- 
acter, and the youngsters in the regiment knew 
quite well that he was “ as straight as they make.” 

Another ten minutes had past and left only five 
to spare; but the angel was smiling a little, and 
Toffy was fingering out quavering notes on the old 
piano. 


328 


PETER AND JANE 



When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, 
Help of the helpless, O, abide with me! 


Life seemed to get bigger as he listened; there 
were no such things as difficulties; you had just to 
know what you ought to do and then to try to do 
it. You had not to pit yourself against a mean mind 
and act meanly by it. Each man had his own job 
to do, and what other men did or left undone was 
their own business. His brother was in a mess and 
he had to help him out of it, whether he deserved it 
or no, not weighing his merit or demerit, but just 
helping him in his need. The glories of life might 
fade away as the old hymn said, or they might last; 
but all that each man had to do so long as he re- 
mained here was to do justly, and love mercy, and 
walk humbly with his God. 

The angel and the devil — if they existed at all 
— fled away and left one solitary man standing alone 
fighting for the sake of honour and clean hands. 

The clock struck ten, and the time was up. Peter 
went inside and laid his hand on Toffy’s shoulder. 
“ Let’s start,” he said, “ if you are ready.” 

“ All right,” said Toffy, shutting the piano, “ I’ll 
go and get Ross.” 

They were in the boat now, slipping down the 
stream in the dark. The current in the river was 
strong here, and the boat slid rapidly between the 


PETER AND JANE 


329 


banks. There was hardly any necessity for rowing. 
Christopherson sat in the stern with the tiller ropes 
in his hands, and Peter reserved his strength for 
when they should get to the broader part of the river 
where the stream did not race as it raced now. On 
their way back they would, of course, avoid the upper 
reaches of the river, and would land lower down when 
they had the man well away from his place. Peter 
rowed stroke, and Hopwood and Ross rowed number 
one and two. The steering, probably, was the most 
difficult part of the business, especially in the present 
state of the river, and any moment they might go 
aground, or get into some eddy which might turn 
the bow of the boat, and land them in the bank. 
Rowing was still easy, and Peter was husbanding 
every ounce of his strength for the pull home. None 
of the men spoke as the boat slipped down between 
the banks of dry mud on either side of the river. 
Some reeds whispered by the shore, and some 
startled birds woke now and then and flew screaming 
away. The moon shone fitfully sometimes, but for 
the most part the night was dark, and the darkness 
increased towards midnight. Once or twice the 
breeze carried the intoxicating smell of flowers from 
the river bank. It was difficult for Toffy although 
he had been down the river many times to know ex- 
actly his bearings. They passed a little settlement 
to their starboard hand, and saw a few lights burn- 
ing in the houses. 

66 That must be Lara’s house,” said Peter. “ We 


330 


PETER AND JANE 


will land here on our way back, and get some horses 
and ride over to the estancia in the morning.” 

The settlement was the last place on the river 
where Purvis’s steamer plied, and there was a small 
jetty piled with wheat waiting to be taken away. 
Here the river was broader and much shallower, and 
stakes of wood had been set in the bed of the river 
to show the passage which the little steamer should 
take. 

“ We should not be far from La Dorada now,” 
said Toffy steering between the lines of stakes, “ but 
I can’t see any signs of the steamer in this black- 
ness.” 

In the day time the river was a pale mud colour 
and very thick and dirty looking. The moon came 
out for a moment and showed like a silver ribbon 
between the grey banks. 

“Easy all!” said Toffy, sniffing the air. “We 
must be near the canning factory at La Dorada.” 

The horrible smell of the slaughter house was 
borne to them on the river, and there were some big 
corrals close by the water, and a small wharf. 

“ It reminds me,” thought Toffy, “ of the beastly 
beef tea which I have had to drink all my life.” 

“ Good Heavens ! ” cried Ross, “ they are firing 
the wharf ! Purvis’s chances are small if this is their 
game.” 

There was not very much to burn; the wood of 
the wharf kindled easily, and the wheat burned sul- 
lenly and sent up grey volumes of smoke. 


PETER AND JANE 


331 


“ Steer under the bank,” said Peter ; “ we don’t 
want to be seen.” 

Toffy steered the boat as near the shore as the 
mud would allow, and as the wood of the wharf 
burned more brightly he could see some men running 
to and fro confusedly every few minutes, and then 
making off further down the river. 

“ They’ll fire the steamer next ! ” said Peter, and 
then bent his back to the oar, and the boat swung 
away into the middle of the stream again. 

The darkness seemed to increase in depth, as it 
does just before the dawn; it was baffling in its in- 
tensity and seemed to press close. 

“ Way enough!” sang out Toffy, for quite un- 
expectedly the little steamer tied to a stake in mid- 
stream loomed up suddenly before them. The men 
shipped their oars with precision, and Toffy caught 
hold of one of the fender ropes. 

“Are you there? ” he called up to the deck, from 
the impenetrable darkness. 

As he spoke Purvis appeared at the top of the little 
gangway, dressed in his clerkly suit and bowler hat. 

“You are just in time,” he said in his thin high 
voice, without a trace of excitement in it. “ When 
the light dawns they will find their boats, and even 
now we may have to run for it.” 

“ Get into the boat,” said Ross roughly, “ and 
don’t waste time.” 

“ I can’t sink my steamer,” said Purvis quietly, 
“ in this shallow part of the river, and I haven’t the 


PETER AND JANE 


i 

means of blowing her up; but I shall now go below 
and overturn the lamp in my cabin, and the boat and 
all that is in it will not be very long in being con- 
sumed.” 

“ Stop that lunatic ! ” yelled Ross as Purvis turned 
to descend into the cabin. “ There’s a boat coming 
up, I can hear the oars distinctly behind us. We’ll 
be overtaken if there’s a minute’s delay ! ” 

Peter, who was next the gangway sprang on board 
the boat and stumbled down the companion in the 
dark. 

“ Purvis ! ” he shouted, “ you’ll be shot in cold 
blood yet, if you don’t look out.” 

Purvis had collected a few things and laid them 
on a pile of shavings in the middle of the cabin, and 
the oil lamp with which he was to ignite the pile was 
in his hand. 

On the top of the pile Peter saw a large tin de- 
spatch case inscribed with his mother’s name. 

“ Hullo ! ” he said quietly ; “ I think I’ll take this ! ” 

For a moment he imagined that Purvis’s hand 
moved with suspicious suddenness towards the re- 
volver in his pocket. In the next he had swung up 
the companion staircase and swung himself into the 
boat, and Peter jumped into his place as the sound 
of rowing and the splash of oars was heard behind 
him. Toffy rowed the bow oar now, and Purvis who 
knew every turn of the river, took the tiller ropes. 

“ I can’t row,” he said, in his plaintive voice, “ but 
I can steer better than any of you.” 


PETER AND JANE 


The man’s composed and unruffled serenity was 
still undisturbed although the rhythmic beat of oars 
behind them was growing nearer and nearer, and the 
creaking of the leather in the rowlocks could be 
heard distinctly. 

“ I have a revolver,” said Purvis quietly, “ and 
dawn is not quite upon us yet.” 

The boat had still the start of the other, and the 
darkness helped them. Purvis knew every yard of 
the river, and could have steered in the darkness of 
a London fog. His pale eyes seemed to have some- 
thing in them of the quality of a cat’s as he peered 
through the dense gloom and guided the boat un- 
erringly. 

There came a faint light on the surface of the 
water; they could dimly see the stakes in the river, 
and could hear the beat of the oars in the other 
boat. It was a race for the Italian settlement where 
they would be safe, and where the other boat, seeing 
the lights from the houses would probably fall be- 
hind. 

Peter had rowed stroke in the Eton boat, but 
Toffy had always been too delicate to be a strong 
rower; the other men had splendid staying power, 
but no particular skill. Still Ross knew Peter’s 
stroke, and the steering was perfect. Not a yard of 
way was lost on their long chase, and as the four 
rowers warmed to their work the excitement of it 
precluded over every other thought. Purvis him- 
self and all his meannesses were forgotten. It was a 


PETER AND JANE 


race and that was all, and the Englishmen’s hearts 
leapt to it. 

The other boat seemed to be drawing nearer. The 
morning was dawning mistily, and the pursuing boat 
seemed to be getting out of her course for a time. 
Peter swung to his oar in perfect style, and Purvis 
with the tiller ropes in his hands gave way to every 
leap of the boat, bending his short spare body in time 
to the stroke of the oars as he sat in the stern. 

“ If we are overtaken, we will make a fight for 
it,” he said. 

“ Naturally,” said Peter briefly, between the long 
strokes of his rowing. 

“ They’ll probably catch us up in the next hundred 
yards,” said Purvis. “ I should think that they are 
armed, and the day is breaking.” 

He turned round in his seat as he spoke, for there 
was a broad straight piece of river before them, and 
as the boat came on he pointed his revolver uncer- 
tainly in the mist and fired. 66 Confound you ! ” 
roared Peter, “ don’t draw their fire yet ! Probably 
our best chance is that they don’t know for certain 
where we are.” 

But Purvis had fired again. There were some 
uncertain shots in return, and one struck the gun- 
wale of the boat by Peter’s side. 

“ That was a near thing,” he said to himself under 
his breath. And then the old feeling of protection 
for the “ young-un ” — the delicate boy who had 
been his fag at Eton stopped his grim smiling, and 


PETER AND JANE 


335 


as another shot whizzed past them he yelled out 
suddenly, u Lie down, Toffy ! Get down into the 
bottom of the boat ! ” 

And quite suddenly Toffy did as he was told. 

Peter rowed then like two men, but the river ran 
more quickly now, and the shallows were more dan- 
gerous, and the steering was more difficult. 

By Jove, how well Purvis knew the navigation of 
it ! He had the tiller ropes in his hands again. He 
made a feint to go under the bank as though to land, 
and then shot suddenly into mid-stream. The other 
boat followed in their wake. Purvis’s knowledge of 
the currents was probably well known, and it was 
safe to follow his lead, the boat and the men in it were 
clear enough now. 

But what in the name of Heaven was Purvis doing ! 
It positively seemed as though he were trying to lose 
the little bit of way that they had gained in advance 
of the others, and for one moment a horrible sense 
of the man’s unscrupulousness came over Peter 
Ogilvie, and he wondered even now in the midst of 
the chase, whether it might not be that Purvis was 
playing them false. 

“ I’ll shoot him before he can sing out if he is! ” 
thought Peter to himself as the boat was steered on 
to the very edge of a shallow again, and then made 
off into the middle of the stream. “ Look out what 
you are about ! ” he cried out, seeing in the wake of 
the boat the uneven circuitous route by which they had 
“ For God’s sake steer straight if you can ! ” 


come. 


336 


PETER AND JANE 


And then he saw a smile on Purvis’s face — the 
usual watery mirthless smile, and the pale wide-open 
blue eyes — and looking back Peter saw that the boat 
behind them was overturned in the stream, and the 
men who had been in it were struggling to the bank, 
while the boat itself was carried rapidly down with 
the current. 

He ceased his rowing then, and getting his breath 
he laughed out aloud. The spirit and excitement 
of the chase had been good and it was successfully 
over. 

“ Look here, you can get up now, Toffy,” he said. 

Peter turned round in his seat and shipped his 
oars with a jerk. 

“ You devil ! 99 he said slowly, “ you must have 
seen him hit! 99 

He bent over the poor boy stretched out in the 
bottom of the boat, and felt his heart and found that 
it still beat. He loosened his neck cloth, and sprin- 
kled water on his face while the two other men fell 
to their oars again, and rowed the boat as the day 
dawned, to the little Italian settlement and carried 
Toffy into the house of the Argentina woman who 
burned candles to the Virgin, and stuck French paper 
match boxes round her shrine. They carried him 
into the hut and laid him on the humble bed, and 
Peter dressed the wound as well as he knew how, while 
Hopwood in an agony hovered round him, and Ross 
was sending here and there to try and find a doctor. 

No one knew what had become of Purvis; no one 


PETER AND JANE 


337 


cared. Each was trying with all his might to save a 
life very dear to them all which was slowly ebbing 
away. 

The sun was up now and the long hot day was 
beginning, but still Toffy had never spoken and 
still Peter kneeled by his side on the mud floor of the 
hut, easing him as he could, giving him water to 
drink, or bathing his forehead. There was not much 
that he could do for him, but he felt that Toffy was 
conscious, and that he liked to have his old friend 
near him. He never altered his position as he 
kneeled, for his arm was under the dying man’s 
head, and it seemed a more comfortable place for it 
than the poor Argentina woman’s hard pillow. 

Toffy lay with wide-open eyes and there were 
great beads of perspiration on his forehead, which 
Hopwood wiped away from time to time. He 
breathed with difficulty in short gasps, and still he 
had never spoken. It came upon Peter with a hor- 
rible sinking of the heart that his friend might die 
before a doctor came, and without saying one word 
to him. All the compunction of a heart that was, 
perhaps, unusually womanly and tender was raging 
within him for not having taken better care of the 
boy. He wanted to say so much to Toffy, and to 
beg his forgiveness and to ask if there was anything 
in the world he could do for him, and he hoped wildly 
and pitifully that he was not in pain. 

But the dying man’s eyes were fixed on the bare 
walls of the hut, and on the little shrine of the 


338 


PETER AND JANE 


Virgin in the corner of the room, and it seemed now 
as if the mistiness of death were settling upon them, 
and that they saw nothing. 

Ross went restlessly to and fro; now entering 
the room for a few minutes and then going out again 
to scan the distant country to see if by any chance 
the camp doctor was coming. 

When Toffy at last spoke he went and stood out- 
side the hut, and some instinct caused him to bare 
his head for a moment, for he felt that some great 
Presence was in the room. 

It was just at the end that Toffy spoke; and his 
voice sounded as though it was a great way off, and 
almost as though it came from another land. 

“ Is Kitty there?” he said. 

“ No, it is me, old man,” said Peter thickly. 

He heard Hopwood beginning to sob, and he bent 
lower to hear what Toffy should say. 

“ Give her my love,” said Toffy. 

Peter was holding the poor boy’s head now, for 
his breathing was becoming more difficult, and he 
stooped and kissed him on the forehead for the sake 
of the girl at home whom Toffy had never kissed. 
And then a great sob broke from him, and he said 
almost as one calls out a message to a departing 
friend, “ I never knew, Toffy, I never knew that you 
had been hit, or I would have stopped.” 

“ I didn’t want to spoil the race,” said Toffy with 
a smile ; 66 1 don’t often win a race,” he said, and with 
that he died. 


CHAPTER XVI 


They carried him home in the evening when the sun 
had set, and on the day following according to the 
custom of the country they buried him. Some peons 
dug the grave in a corner of the little estate, and 
sawed some planks and made a railing round it, and 
Ross read the burial service over him from Toffy’s 
own Prayer Book, and Peter kept the well-worn 
Bible for Kitty Sherard. 

Peter sought solitude where he could. His grief 
was of the kind which can only be borne in solitude. 
The love of David and Jonathan had not been deeper 
than the affection he and his friend had had for one 
another. The small estancia house became intoler- 
able with its sense of void, and the feeling that at 
any moment Toffy might appear, always with some 
new project in hand, always gravely hopeful about 
everything he undertook, always doing his best to 
risk his life in absurd ventures such as no one else 
would have attempted. It was only the other day that 
he had seen him trying to break a horse which even 
a gaucho felt shy of riding, and he loved to be in 
the thick of the melee attempting the difficult task 
of swinging a lasso above his head, and with that 
air of imperturbable gravity always about him. Or 
Peter pictured him in the long chair, where since his 

feverish attack he had lain so often, ruffling up his 
339 


340 


PETER AND JANE 


hair and puzzling his head over problems of Hebrew 
theology. Every corner seemed to be full of him, 
and yet no one had ever seemed to have a less asser- 
tive personality than he, nor a lighter hold on his 
possessions. He thought of how he himself had al- 
ways gone to Toffy’s dressing table to borrow any- 
thing he might require — the boy who was so much 
accustomed to have his things appropriated by other 
people! And then again he saw him in the big 
ugly drawing-room at Hulworth, nursing one of his 
appalling colds, or looking with grave resentment 
at his priceless collection of vases in the glass cases 
in the hall. He remembered him riding in the 
steeplechase at Sedgewick, and quite suddenly he 
recollected how sick and faint Kitty Sherard had 
become when he fell at the last jump. He thought 
of the silver box he had bought for her at Bahia, 
and he wondered how it was that he had been so 
blind as not to see how much these two had cared for 
each other. His feeling of loss amounted almost 
to an agony, and once when he had ridden alone far 
on to the camp, he shouted his dead friend’s name 
out aloud many times, and felt baffled and disap- 
pointed when there was no response. 

Good God! Was it only two nights ago that he 
was picking out hymn tunes with his finger on the 
piano! At dinner time they had been teasing him 
about the Prophet Elijah, Toffy having calculated 
the exact distance that the old Prophet must have 
run in front of Ahab’s chariot. 


PETER AND JANE 


341 


“ It was a fearful long sprint for an old man,” 
Toffy had said in a certain quaint way he had. And 
now Toffy lay in his long narrow grave under the 
mimosa tree, and the world seemed to lack something 
which had formerly made it charitable and simple- 
hearted, and even touched with beauty. 

No one asked after Purvis; no one had seen him. 
He had disappeared in the mysterious way in which 
he usually came and went, but his little boy was still 
at the estancia, and his bitter crying for the friend 
who was dead had added to the unhappiness of the 
day. 

He was as a child not easily given to tears, and 
his efforts at controlling his sobs were as pathetic 
as his weeping. Peter found him the morning after 
Toffy’s death curled up behind some firewood in an 
outhouse where he had gone so that his tears should 
not be seen. 

He comforted him as well as he knew how, and 
wished that Jane were there, and thought how well 
she could console the little fellow, and he said to him- 
self with an upward stretch of his arms which relieved 
the ache of his heart for a moment, “ Oh, if women 
only knew how much a man wants them when he is 
down on his luck ! ” He thought he could have told 
Jane everything, and he could have talked to her 
about Toffy as he could talk to no one else about 
him, and he wished with all his heart that he could 
climb up there behind the stack of wood and give 
way to tears as this poor little chap had done. He 


342 


PETER AND JANE 


wondered what they were to do with him, suppose 
Purvis never came back again. 

But Purvis came back. Men often said of him 
that he had a genius for doing the unexpected thing; 
but no one could have expected even of him that he 
would venture to a place so near his own estate and 
to the villagers who had attempted his life. 

He travelled by night, of course. His cat-like 
eyes always seemed capable of seeing in the dark, 
and even his horse’s footfalls had something soft 
and feline about them. 

The other men were sleeping as men do after two 
long sleepless nights and a day of stress and exer- 
tion. Even grief could not keep away the feeling 
of exhaustion, and Purvis could hear the deep breath- 
ing of sleeping men in the corridor, when, having 
tethered his horse to a distant paraiso tree, he stole 
softly up to the door. 

His boy’s room was at the back of the house, and 
Purvis crept round to it, and called him softly by 
name. Dick’s short life had been full of adventure 
and surprises and he never uttered a sound when 
his father’s light touch awakened him from sleep, 
and his voice told him softly to get up. Purvis 
dressed the child with something of a woman’s skill in 
his touch, and then he bade him remain where he was 
while he crept softly into the drawing-room of the 
house. 

He came back presently as noiselessly as he had 


PETER AND JANE 


343 


left the room; and whispered, 44 1 am looking for a 
tin box ; is it anywhere about P ” 

“ They opened it to-day, and took some papers 
out,” said Dick. 

Purvis drew one short quick breath. 

44 Then let us be off at once,” he said. 

He crossed the room once more in his stealthy 
fashion, and took from the mantelpiece a small bottle 
of nerve tabloids which he had forgotten, and slipped 
them into his pocket and then went out into the dark 
again. Once he paused at the entrance of the cor- 
ridor, and listened attentively, and then crept down 
the garden path and found the horses tethered to 
the paraiso trees. They led them softly through 
the monta, and there Dick paused. 

64 1 am going to say good-bye to him,” he said, 44 1 
don’t care what you say ! ” 

He went to the grave under the mimosa trees, and 
with a queer elfin gesture he stooped down and kissed 
the lately disturbed sods, and made the sign of the 
cross upon his narrow little chest as he had seen his 
Spanish mother do. 

The dignity of the action with its unconscious 
touch of foreign grace, and the boy’s pathetic at- 
tempt to keep back his tears as he stood by the grave 
in the darkness at an hour when any other boy of his 
age would have been safely tucked up in bed, might 
well touch the heart of anyone who stood beside the 
child. 


344 


PETER AND JANE 


“ I didn’t know he was hit ! ” said Purvis suddenly ; 
and probably he spoke the truth for one of the rare 
times in his life. Toffy was one of the few men 
who in many years had trusted him, and he had been 
a good friend to Dick. 

. . . “ Well ! the game’s up ! ” said Purvis, 

and he and his son mounted their horses and rode off 
into the blackness of the night together. 

Ross had rescued the black japanned box from 
the boat, and had kept it under his care until such 
time as he should have an opportunity of giving it to 
Peter. It was from a sense that it might provide 
some sort of distraction to a man almost dazed with 
grief that made him bring it into the drawing-room 
the evening of the day Toffy was buried, and suggest 
that perhaps Peter had better open it and see what 
was in it. The key was gone of course, but they 
pried it open with some tools, and on the top of the 
box there was a letter which made Peter lay his hand 
over his pocket for a moment. It was as though by 
some sleight of hand the packet which lay there had 
been transferred to the interior of a black japanned 
box discovered upon a river steamer in the Argentine 
Republic. The writing on the cover was a duplicate 
of the one he himself held, and was addressed in his 
mother’s writing : “ To my son, to be given to him 
at my death.” 

Peter could not see quite straight for a moment. 
The finding of the packet seemed to establish his 
brother’s identity conclusively; and he took out the 


PETER AND JANE 


345 


folded sheets which lay inside the cover, with hands 
that were not altogether steady. 

The very words in the opening sentences were the 
same as his own letter, and written in the clear strong 
handwriting which he knew so well. 

“ When you get this letter I shall be dead,” 
he read in the words which were already so pain- 
fully familiar to him, “ and before I die I think 
there is something which I had better tell you. I 
am not haunted by remorse nor indulging in death- 
bed repentance, and I shall merely ask you not to 
hate me more than you can help when you have fin- 
ished reading this letter. You must have often 
heard of your elder brother who died when I was in 
Spain, the year of your father’s death. He did not 
die — ” so far Peter knew the letter off by heart, 
but there seemed to be many pages of writing to 
follow. 

“ — and as far as I am aware he may be living 
now.” 

66 If it is anything bad,” said Ross kindly, “ why 
not put it off till to-morrow? You are about used 
up to-day, Peter, and whatever there is in the box 
can wait.” 

“ I am all right, thanks,” said Peter, without 
looking up. And Ross went out to the patio and 
left him alone. 

“ I must go a long way back to make myself in- 
telligible,” the letter went on. “I suppose people 
of Spanish descent are generally credited with an 


346 


PETER AND JANE 


unforgiving spirit. For myself I do not under- 
stand what the word forgiveness means, and I have 
never forgiven my sister-in-law for the things she 
said of me. I did not attempt revenge, possibly be- 
cause there was only one way in which I could de- 
prive her and her children of their inheritance. That 
way was denied me — for my only child was a little 
girl who lived but a few hours. After that I had 
no other children. I think the disappointment of 
being childless had entered both our lives with a 
bitterness which I shall not attempt to recall. I will 
only say that we both mourned it in a manner per- 
haps unusual, and that Lionel Ogilvie and his wife 
by their conduct made what might have been merely 
a sorrow a matter also of almost unbearable disap- 
pointment. I mention these regrettably emotional 
feelings in order to make my subsequent conduct 
intelligible to you. In the course of years during 
which your father had hardly attended to any mat- 
ters concerning the property because it would seem 
to be benefitting his legal successors, I urged him to 
go abroad on an exploring expedition such as he 
loved, hoping in some way to mitigate his disap- 
pointment, or keep him from dwelling upon it. I 
have probably not conveyed to you how deep the 
quarrel was between him and his brother; but if I 
have not done so it is not of any great importance, 
and you would hardly understand the intensity of 
our feelings. 

“ When he had sailed for Central Africa I went 


PETER AND JANE 


347 


out to Spain to visit my property there, and I took 
a steamer to Lisbon for the benefit of my health, as 
I had been advised to take a voyage by my doctors. 
There was a young couple on the steerage of the boat 
going out to settle in Argentina, people of the work- 
ing class and very poor, and before we reached Lis- 
bon on the night of a storm, the woman who was 
very delicate died, and the father was left to start 
life in an unknown country with a child of barely a 
month old to look after. Some kind-hearted people 
made up a subscription for him on board, with the 
English people’s quaint notion that all grief can be 
assuaged with food or money, and one night when 
I was on deck alone, the stewardess brought me the 
baby to see, and the little creature stretched out its 
arms to me and behaved in a way which goes to the 
heart of a woman who yearns for children. 

“ When we got into Lisbon the following day I 
offered the man to adopt the child, and when my 
maid returned to England I got a Spanish woman 
for him and took him with me to my own estate. 
He was greeted everywhere as my son, and allowing 
myself the luxury of the small deception, pretended 
to myself that he really was mine; but weeks passed 
before I ever dreamed of deceiving anybody else on 
the subject. It was a letter which my sister-in-law 
wrote me which decided me to stay out in Granada 
during my husband’s two years’ absence, and to an- 
nounce in course of time that I was the mother of a 
son. The plan was quite stupidly easy, and every- 


348 


PETER AND JANE 


thing lent itself to the deception. The child was 
fair and not unlike the Ogilvies, and his father had 
given him up entirely to me on the understanding 
that he was never to claim him again. It may seem 
strange to you, but it is a fact that after I returned 
to England there was not the vaguest suspicion in 
anyone’s mind that he was not mine. When my 
husband returned from abroad I was convinced, if 
I had ever doubted it, that I had acted wisely. Un- 
der the circumstances I should act in the same way 
again. 

“ Of course events proved that I had made a mis- 
take; but I had made, in the meantime, my husband 
perfectly happy and my sister-in-law perfectly miser- 
able, and that was what I desired. 

“You were bom a year after your father’s re- 
turn home, and when the other child was three years 
old. To say that I then found myself in an in- 
tolerable position would not be to overstate the case. 
If your father had lived my difficulties would have 
been greater than they actually were, and it was dur- 
ing his life time and after your birth that I suffered 
most. I suppose only a woman and one, moreover, 
who has longed for children would be able to realise 
what my feelings were, and I shall not urge your 
compassion by dwelling upon that time. I have 
never accepted pity, and I should prefer not to have 
it bestowed upon me when I am dead. 

“ It was only after your father’s death that I saw 
a way of escape out of the intolerable position where 


PETER AND JANE 


349 


I had placed myself. I was in very bad health for 
a time, and my husband’s affection for the alien child 
was more than I was quite able to bear. There is 
always a touch of the savage in motherhood, and I am 
naturally jealous. 

“ After my husband’s death I went out to my own 
property in Spain, and by judiciously moving about 
there from one place to another and changing my 
personal servants frequently it was a comparatively 
easy matter to say that the child had died, without 
exactly specifying where his death had taken place. 

“ It was absolutely necessary that he should be 
got rid of. A common emigrant’s boy was taking 
the place of my son in everything. The very tenants 
about the place treated him differently from the way 
in which they treated you. My husband had decided 
that the bulk of his property was to go to him. 
And all the time I knew that his father was from the 
class f rom which, perhaps, navvies are drawn, and that 
his mother was some girl from Whitechapel or Mile 
End. 

“ He had to go; but I treated him fairly. I took 
him down to Lisbon myself and sent him back to his 
father, with a trustworthy couple who were going 
out there. From my own private fortune I be- 
stowed upon him a sum sufficient to educate him and 
to place him in the world. 

“ I think I never breathed freely or had one un- 
disturbed moment from the time you were born until 
he had gone to Argentina. 


350 


PETER AND JANE 


“ The people to whom I entrusted him both died 
of fever in Rosario, and from that day to this I 
have never heard of the boy who was called Edward 
Ogilvie. The money which I had bestowed upon 
him had proved too tempting to someone. The 
child disappeared, and so far as I am concerned he 
was never heard of again. 

“ For four years he had lived as my own son, and 
it was I who took him away from his father and his 
natural surroundings. I want you to find him if 
you can. If he has been brought up vilely or 
treated brutally by strangers the fault, of course, lies 
with me; this will probably distress you, but I think 
it will be an incentive also to you to try and find the 
man.” 

The letter was signed in Mrs. Ogilvie’s name, and 
it finished as abruptly as it had begun. 


The first thing that roused Peter from the sense 
of bewilderment and almost of stupor which beset 
him was Dunbar’s arrival at the estancia. 

“ Purvis has given us the slip again ! ” said the 
detective. “ The man has as many lives as he has 
names! He has disappeared more than once before, 
and he has even died to my certain konwledge two 
or three times, in order to get out of a tight place.” 

“ Oh, Purvis, yes ! ” said Peter absently ; and then 
he pulled himself together and briefly told Dunbar 
the whole story. 


PETER AND JANE 


351 


“ It doesn’t alter the fact,” said Dunbar, “ that I 
have got to find him if I can.” 

“No,” said Peter, stupidly; “no, I suppose it 
would not,” and he added in a heavy voice, “ I believe 
Toffy would like me to look after the boy.” 

“ The mystery to me is,” said Dunbar, “ how 
Purvis as you call him (to me of course he is E. W. 
Smith) could have got hold of this box of papers. 
It may be a fraud yet,” he said truculently, “ and it 
will require investigation.” 

“ I know my mother’s writing,” said Peter, “ and 
Purvis was in the act of trying to bum the box before 
we took him off the steamer. It is the last thing in 
the world that it would suit him to have about him if 
he meant to establish his claim to be the heir.” 

“ That’s so,” said Dunbar thoughtfully. 

“ The box could not have come out with him when 
he sailed to Argentina as a child,” said Peter, “ be- 
cause the letter is dated long after that.” 

“ And you say you never saw the man until you 
met him out here?” Dunbar went on. 

He brought out a notebook from his pocket and 
began to jot down Peter’s replies. 

“ No,” said Peter, “ or if I did I can’t recall where 
it was. At first when I saw him he reminded me of 
someone whom I had met, but afterwards when it 
seemed pretty well established that he was my brother 
both Christopherson and I thought that this vague 
recollection of the man, which I mentioned to him, 
might be based on the fact that there was some sort of 


352 


PETER AND JANE 


likeness between him and some members of my 
family.” 

Dunbar jotted this down also. 

“ And you positively have no recollection of hav- 
ing seen him,” he said as he fastened a band of elastic 
round the book. “ If that is so, he must have had 
accomplices in England who stole the box for him. 
I shall have to find out where these boxes were kept 
at your home, and as nearly as possible I must dis- 
cover with whom Purvis was in communication in 
England. Or he may have gone there himself. I 
know that he went home in one of Lamport and 
Holts boats only a few months ago — that was after 
the wreck of the Rosana , you understand, and it 
was while he was in England that I saw him, and I 
knew for certain that he had not gone down in the 
wreck. My warrant against him is for a common 
hotel robbery. It was when he came back to Argen- 
tina that he began this river trading which was in the 
hands of a better man till he took it.” 

“ The plan will be for you and my lawyer to work 
together,” said Peter; “but at present I can’t fur- 
nish you with the smallest clue as to how these papers 
came into his possession. I know the look of the 
box quite well. There were several of them in my 
mother’s writing room, which was in the oldest part 
of the house. They were all destroyed one night 
last autumn when we had rather a serious fire there.” 

Dunbar took out his notebook and began to 
write — 


PETER AND JANE 


353 


“ By J ovel ” exclaimed Peter, suddenly starting 
from his seat. 

It all came back to him with a flash — the burning 
tower with volumes of smoke rising from it — the 
line of men with hoses and buckets pouring water 
on the connecting bridge of the tower. The groups 
of frightened guests on the terrace and his mother 
standing unmoved amongst them, in her sumptuous 
purple dress and the, diamonds in her hair. The ar- 
rival of the fire engine from Sedgewick, and then, 
just at the end, the figure of a man appearing on the 
bridge with a cloak wound round his head dashing 
into the doorway through which the smoke was is- 
suing in great waves, his sudden flight across the 
bridge again, and then Jane at his elbow clasping 
his arm, and saying in a terrified tone, “ Oh, Peter ! 
for a moment I thought it was you ! ” 

Dunbar was scribbling rapidly in his notebook. 
“ It is as clear as mud ! ” he said at last. “ Purvis, 
after the Rosana incident, was missing for a con- 
siderable time, and it is believed that his English 
wife at Rosario hid him somewhere. There he prob- 
ably heard the story of his adoption and determined 
to prove himself the eldest son.” 

The Scot was very seldom excited; but he got up 
from his chair and began to walk rapidly up and 
down the room, his under lip stuck out, and his tough, 
fair hair thrown back from his forehead. 

“ The whole thing depended upon his getting what 
direct information he could about the property, and 


354 * 


PETER AND JANE 


he must have worked this thing well — the fire, I 
take it, was accidental? ” 

44 Oh, the fire was accidental enough,” said Peter, 
44 and was found to be due to some electric lighting 
which was put into the tower.” 

44 Purvis’s visit to England must have been first 
of all to ascertain if Mrs. Ogilvie was still alive, and 
in the first instance he probably meant to levy black- 
mail upon her; he must have discovered where she 
kept her papers, and have tried to effect an entrance 
on the night of the ball when many strangers were 
about.” 

44 1 believe,” exclaimed Peter, 44 we saw him in one 
of the corridors of the house during the dance; and 
decided that he must be one of the guests unknown 
to us who had come with some country neighbour, 
and that he had lost his way amongst the almost in- 
terminable passages of the place.” 

He saw himself and Jane making for the leather- 
covered door which led to the bridge, and the shrink- 
ing stranger with his hopelessly timid manner who 
had drawn back at their approach, and he thought 
he heard himself saying to the girl, 44 Shall I get him 
some partners, or leave the people who brought him 
to the dance to look after him? ” 

It was only a fleeting look that he had caught of 
the man’s face, and he recalled it with difficulty now, 
but it was not a far-fetched conclusion to decide that 
the two were one and the same man. 

Dunbar was in a sort of transport. 44 It’s the 


PETER AND JANE 


355 


best case I ever had ! ” he said, 44 and we only want 
the man himself to make the thing complete. Purvis 
has played some pretty clever and some pretty deep 
games in his time, but this is about the coolest thing 
he ever tried to pull off, and he has as nearly as 
possible won through with it.” 

Mr. Dunbar always relapsed into a strong Scotch 
accent in moments of excitement, and he became al- 
most unintelligible at last, as he rolled forth his R’s 
and gave it as his opinion that the man was a worth- 
less scoundrel. 

44 He’s just working for what he’ll get!” he con- 
cluded, with the idiom which to English ears sounds 
so enigmatic, 44 and the Lord will need to have mercy 
upon him, for he’ll not get much at my hands! ” 

44 But I,” said Peter, 44 have got to remember that 
my mother charges me to befriend the man.” 

44 But then,” said Dunbar tersely, 46 your mother 
never knew what sort of man you would have to deal 
with.” 

44 God knows,” said Peter, 44 if we are responsible ! ” 

44 Well, it’s a hanging matter, if we get him,” said 
Dunbar cheerfully. 

He and the commisario had their orders and they 
would be obliged to execute them — the results must 
be left for a court of justice to decide. 

They rode away the following morning, and there 
seemed nothing for it but to wait at the estancia until 
more news was forthcoming. For Peter the days 
were the saddest of his life, and left an impression 


356 


PETER AND JANE 


upon him which nothing ever quite removed after- 
wards. He had become an older man suddenly, and 
a certain boyishness which was characteristic of him 
was gone and never returned again. Life, which 
had once seemed so simple to him and so easily lived, 
so full of pleasures and of good times and good com- 
rades, had suddenly become complex and filled with 
difficulties, and made up of grave decisions, and 
shadowed by a sorrow which would probably be felt 
as long as he lived. Ross would not let him stay 
indoors and mercifully gave him a double share of 
work to do. The weather was cooler now, and the 
days could be filled with outdoor occupations from 
morning till night. There were no siestas in the 
afternoon, or lazy dawdling over afternoon coffee in 
the heat of the day, to remind him of long gossips 
with Toffy, and the evenings were shorter and not 
so difficult to fill. 

" I’m an awful bore, Ross,” said Peter, having sat 
silent from dinner time until he went to bed one 
night, “ but I can’t help it.” 

“ I know you can’t,” said Ross kindly. 

The big man, who was a poor player of cards at 
the best of times, became seized with a desire to learn 
picquet, and strange as his method of consolation 
may have been, Peter knew what the good fellow 
meant by it, and taught him the game and got 
through the time somehow. 

There was still no news of Purvis ; the man seemed 
to have vanished in his own mysterious way, and 


PETER AND JANE 


357 


nothing could be heard of him. It was ascertained 
that he was well supplied with money, and it was 
thought that as his child would be incapable of any 
very long journeys or unusual hardships, the discovery 
of his whereabouts near home might lead to the dis- 
covery of his father. But the thing remained a 
mystery. Dunbar’s long, lean frame grew leaner than 
ever as he searched and journeyed and telegraphed 
without obtaining any results. 

It was the boy who appeared first, and then with- 
out his father. Perhaps Purvis discovered that es- 
cape would be easier without the burden of the child, 
or it may have been that his queer affection for him 
had determined him to seek safety for him somewhere. 
But it was part of the man’s extraordinary coolness 
that he should send him to Peter Ogilvie to look after. 

The boy arrived at the estancia one night, a poor 
tired little object, with a letter from his father in 
his pocket. The two had made their way as far as 
the province of Salta, and from there the boy had 
been sent to Taco, where, unaided, he had found a 
horse and had ridden over to the estancia. He was 
thin and weak looking, and had evidently suffered a 
good deal from his many joumeyings. Ross took 
him and looked after him, and gave him some light 
work on the farm to do, and there he remained while 
Dunbar journeyed to Salta, to find that Purvis had 
left the place long before he arrived. Only a 
woman at Rosario knew where he was, and this 
woman had learned not to tell. She had married 


358 


PETER AND JANE 


Purvis years ago, soon after she arrived in Argentina 
to be governess to some English children. Her em- 
ployers had not been kind to her, and in a country 
where comforts were few she had had less than her 
share of them. She was a girl of twenty then, and 
very pretty, and hers was a faithful heart, and 
cynical as it may sound it had had faithfulness thrust 
upon it by the fact that she was utterly friendless 
in the world. When Purvis married her she went to 
him gladly. When he deserted her she even pre- 
tended to believe in him, for the pitiful reason that 
there was no one else in the whole of that strange 
land to whom she could turn. She was a woman to 
whom the easy excuse of business could always be 
said, in the widest sense of the term, for she had been 
brought up to believe that that very comprehensive 
word signified something almost as mysterious as af- 
fairs of the spirit. It was not safe to predict of 
those who were engaged in business whence they 
came or whither they would go. Sometimes she did 
not see her husband for months or even for a year at 
a time; he did not always share his abundant days 
with her, but he had nearly always come back to her 
when he was in trouble. 

He arrived one night in Rosario without disguise 
of any sort, and knocked at her humble door in one 
of the meanest parts of the town. He was never 
beaten for long, and he announced to her that he 
wanted her help in a new scheme that he had planned. 


PETER AND JANE 


359 


His fortune was to be made once more, but the scheme 
itself must remain hidden for a time. His wife upon 
this occasion was to help him by acting as cat’s paw. 

“ It’s a big thing,” Purvis said, “ and will require 
all my strength,” and he announced his intention of 
remaining hidden in Rosario for a few weeks while 
he rested completely. But his chronic inability to 
sleep made rest impossible. He was calculating and 
adding up figures during the watches of the night, 
and his strange, light-coloured eyes with the constant 
tear in them became paler in colour and more sug- 
gestive of bad nerves. He began to find his calcula- 
tions difficult to balance, and he even made some mis- 
takes in his long rows of figures. The thing worried 
him, and he began to wonder if his head were going. 
He had always overcome difficulties and had fought 
dangers with an absolute belief in his own success. 
He was unscrupulous and cunning, but he had never 
been beaten yet. It was horrible that sleep was the 
thing that he could not command, but alas! the ex- 
ercise of will power is not the force by which sleep 
can be induced, and a placid or submissive mind was 
unknown to Purvis. His wife watched him anx- 
iously. She would go for long walks with him in 
the early dawn, or after it was dark, hoping that the 
fresh air and the cooler weather might bring some 
sort of repose to the wide-open pale eyes, but no 
sleep came, and Purvis took to eating more tabloids, 
and planning and contriving his rows of figures in a 


360 


PETER AND JANE 


nervous way, while his hand trembled and his plain- 
tive voice became irritable and his eyes watered more 
than they were wont. 

He had money in hand, and it was some sort of 
comfort to his wife to be able to purchase for him 
the nourishing food which he required. She had 
often been in sore straits for money herself, but she 
believed with pathetic conviction that a woman can do 
with fewer comforts than a man can, and she had 
never felt deprivations for herself as much as she 
would have felt them for her husband. She cooked 
tempting dishes for him and enjoyed his companion- 
ship, and asked no questions. She even allowed her- 
self the purchase of a few new clothes now that 
money was plentiful again, and these days, even with 
the anxiety of her husband’s ill health hanging over 
her were not by any means the unhappiest of her life. 

“ I shan’t be able to pull this business through,” 
said Purvis, one night, “ unless I sleep, and I can’t 
live unless I succeed with it.” 

He made his wife write innumerable letters for him 
in her own handwriting, and signed with an entirely 
new name. But it made business affairs more diffi- 
cult to do them through another person, and even his 
meek wife might some day ask questions ! 

If only he could pull himself together and get a 
firmer grasp of things than he had at present ! The 
commercial instinct was strong within him, and he had 
a genius for figures, but the state of his nerves and 
his inability to sleep seemed to have deprived him of 


PETER AND JANE 


361 


half his powers. He envied his wife her gentle breath- 
ing and her deep sleep, and he would often wake her 
in the night when he was most restless, and demand 
something at her hands — a very weak cup of tea, 
or a little milk and hot water — in order to hear the 
restoring sound of a human voice. 

Lately, however, he had purchased a new sort of 
tabloid, which he used sparingly according to the 
chemist’s directions, but at which he often looked 
longingly, believing that a little sleep lay within the 
tiny glass bottle. 

He had lain awake for hours this night, noting the 
ticking of his watch, counting the hours as they 
struck on the neighbouring clock, falling sometimes 
into an uneasy slumber which lasted only a few min- 
utes, and then waking at the sound of his own voice 
calling aloud in his sleep. He tried every plan and 
contrivance, however childish, by which men have 
sometimes courted slumber, and through the nights 
while other men rested he was walking up and down, 
or brushing his hair, bathing his face in cold water, 
smoking cigarettes, rubbing himself with a towel, 
and going through strange acrobatic efforts by which 
wearied men hope to overcome insomnia. 

He lay in bed very still to-night, his wide staring 
eyes looking into the darkness. He heard every hour 
as it struck, and his active brain refused to be quiet 
for a moment. Difficult things looked gigantic in 
the darkness and everything upon which his thoughts 
dwelt became hopelessly exaggerated in his mind. 


PETER AND JANE 


Brandy and other stimulants had never been a temp- 
tation to him; his life had too often depended 
upon his head for him to risk a muddled brain. But 
he still believed in tabloids, and as the day dawned 
and light crept through the window he looked long- 
ingly at the little glass phial lying on the dressing 
table. It was three o’clock, and if only he could get 
a couple of hours’ deep sleep before the noise of the 
city began he might yet be able to pull himself to- 
gether, and take his affairs in hand. 

He rose from the bed and went with unfaltering 
steps to the dressing table, and shook the tiny discs 
into the palm of his hand, and then he counted them 
deliberately. 

“ It’s kill or cure ! ” he said with that queer cour- 
age which never deserted him, even if it was based 
entirely upon self-seeking and self-interest. He 
threw his head back with the characteristic action with 
which he always swallowed his medicine, and went 
back to bed again. 

And then Purvis slept; and it may have been that 
he was glad to sleep on forever, for he was tired 
through and through, and the only way to escape 
failure was by death. 

His wife mourned for him deeply and sincerely as 
many better men have not been mourned. There was 
only one thing she dreaded in the whole world, and 
that was loneliness. She had endured so much of it 
in her lifetime, and now that her husband, whom 
as a matter of necessity she had believed in, was 


PETER AND JANE 


363 


gone, she was quite alone. She knew nothing of 
business, and it never struck her as strange that there 
should be money amounting to a considerable little 
fortune in a box in the house. With the fear of 
want removed the poor creature blossomed into 
youthfulness again, and she married an engineer on 
a new railway line, who was very good to her, and 
to whom she ever held up the late lamented Purvis 
as one of the best of husbands, and one, too, who 
had left her well provided for. 


CHAPTER XVII 


Peter and Jane were married the following autumn 
with the ring which Toffy had kept wrapped up in 
a piece of tissue paper in his waistcoat pocket. 

For an account of the general rejoicings the 
Culversham local paper must be consulted. There 
you will find columns of print devoted to accounts of 
the f eastings and fireworks of the tenants’ dinners, 
and the school children’s teas. You will see also a 
long list of wedding presents, and you will glean the 
information that Miss Abingdon wore mauve silk, 
that Canon Wrottesley’s address to the young couple 
was most affecting and beautiful, and that Mrs. 
Wrottesley was not well enough to appear. You will 
learn that the organist from Sedgewick cathedral 
“ surpassed himself ” in his rendering of the “ Wed- 
items of information as that Gunter made the wed- 
ding March,” and you may even get such interesting 
ding cake, and that the Sunday School children pre- 
sented the bride with a handsome pair of china vases. 

But in order to really understand and appreciate 
the full interest of Jane Erskine’s wedding you 
would have had to be at Tetley Place on the morning 
of the twenty-sixth of October last year. You would 
have seen Miss Abingdon bustling about at quite an 
early hour in the morning, and have found her so 
severe in her speech and so absolutely radiant in her 
364 


PETER AND JANE 


365 


expression that it was very difficult, indeed, to under- 
stand how to treat her. A servant, for instance, see- 
ing her beaming face might venture on a congratu- 
latory remark, perhaps on the beauty of the weather 
which had been provided especially for Miss Jane’s 
wedding, only to be met by the acid reply that mar- 
riage was an immense responsibility, and that the 
coming years alone could prove whether it was a suc- 
cess or not. Miss Abingdon having in this way 
snubbed all who spoke to her, and thoroughly scolded 
her old enemy, the gardener, about his arrangement 
of the flowers, which entirely pleased her, continued 
to look so beaming and delightful that it tempted 
other people to address her and to receive similar re- 
buffs. No one, perhaps, guessed at her secret happi- 
ness, but, undoubtedly, her greatest satisfaction lay in 
the fact that she had triumphed completely over Gen- 
eral Erskine by thus securing his niece as a near 
neighbour of her own for life. Jane might go to 
London for the season, of course, but Bowshott was 
her home, and the village of Culversham the natural 
centre of her interests. Miss Abingdon became posi- 
tively condescending to General Erskine before the 
wedding day was over, and invariably alluded to Jane 
as “ my niece,” as though the General had no claim 
to relationship with her whatever. 

She gave new caps and aprons and gowns to all 
her maids, and assured them as she did so that dress 
was a vanity, and that these dresses would probably 
be singularly unbecoming to the wearers; and she 


366 


PETER AND JANE 


was altogether so contradictious and so happy, and 
at the same time so tearful in the short intervals in 
which she was not scolding someone that if she had 
not been completely understood by everyone there is 
no saying how bewildering an effect she might have 
had upon those about her. Her servants, however, 
had all grown old in her service, and for the most 
part had young things of thirty or forty under them 
to do their work, and to be snubbed by them in turn, 
so that the mistress’s most poignant criticisms were 
received very calmly. Or if some stranger in the 
house who had only been there for ten or twelve 
years showed a tendency to feel her feelings, Jane 
put things right with such an one in about a minute 
and a half. 

Canon Wrottesley, who still believed that his wife 
was only feeling the effects of winter weather, the 
spring weather, the summer weather, or the autumn 
weather, was as gay and debonair as usual, and even 
at the wedding it was felt that he was in some sort 
the centre of things. He had his usual group of 
admirers about him, and was so gracious and charm- 
ing, so patriarchal one moment and so boyish the 
next, that his popularity was not to be wondered at. 
The very school children as they threw their flowers 
glanced upwards at the Canon for his approval. 

Mrs. Avory — dressed in black — went very qui- 
etly to the wedding with her little girl beside her. 
She wept sadly during the service, but she looked 
stronger now, and less suffering than she had been 


PETER AND JANE 


367 


wont to do. A special niche seemed to have been 
found for her in the village of Culversham, where she 
loved the poor people and went about amongst the 
cottages, and read to sick people, and was happier, 
perhaps, than she quite knew in her own pathetic little 
way. 

Kitty Sherard — God bless her ! — was a brides- 
maid and never cried at all, and wore her rose-col- 
oured dress bravely, and carried Jane’s big bouquet, 
and held her gloves when she laid her hand in Peter’s 
for a moment when the wedding ring was placed upon 
it. And she never faltered from beginning to end 
of that long day. But no one, not even Jane, knew 
quite what it cost her, although Jane was thinking 
about her nearly the whole time, and loving her and 
admiring her with all her heart. 

It is a comforting thought which many people hold 
as a belief that there are guardian angels or spirits 
which watch round the beds of those who weep. 
Such a loving tender spirit keeping watch by Kitty 
Sherard’s bed that night, and hearing her bitter 
sobbing may have known something of the poor girl’s 
sorrow. Soldiers, men tell us, who have seen many 
battlefields, cover their faces when they are wounded, 
so that their comrades may not see their drawn 
features and their pain. So Kitty chose the dark in 
which to weep. Let us leave her there and not in- 
trude upon her tears. Her father, watching her 
anxiously, decided that she was not well, and fretted 
and wondered with pathetic helplessness what he 


368 


PETER AND JANE 


could do for her. And Kitty said she would be all 
right when hunting began again, and declared that 
it was really only exercise that she wanted. 

Perhaps, a certain joy of living will come back to 
her when the hounds are running, and the good horse 
under her carries her bravely and well. Perhaps, 
some day the intolerable loneliness and the longing 
which she feels now will be lessened. But I think 
Kitty will never tell her mad little stories again, nor 
wear her rose-coloured ribbons so jauntily, nor 
smile so provokingly as she dances, or drives her 
horses tandem through the lanes. I think she will 
never be so provoking and bewildering, nor ever talk 
such amazing slang when she goes to race meetings 
with her father, as she means to continue to do. 

Sometimes I think Mrs. Avory may marry again; 
for her husband is rapidly getting through his life 
and his health in a laudable endeavour to live every 
day of it, and there are times when I wonder if, in 
years to come, I may not see her established as the 
gentle and admiring wife of our handsome country 
Rector, doing good all her days and dying beloved 
by rich and poor alike. But I never think of Kitty 
Sherard as caring for anyone else except the poor 
boy, who, whatever his faults may have been, had 
never in his whole life had an unkind or ungentle 
thought of anyone, and who played the game as 
honourably as he knew it, and then laid down his life 
in the simple manner of a gentleman. 

Peter will never forget him. When he has boys 


PETER AND JANE 


369 


of his own he will call them after his dead friend’s 
name, and will tell them of that sweet and gentle 
nature which in his lifetime seldom got the best of 
anything, and was often “ stuck,” as we used to say, 
but whom we all loved and shall continue to love. 
He never failed to stand by a friend or to act chival- 
rously by a woman, and his ideas of nobility — who 
knows? — may have been something higher than 
those which are possessed by people who say much 
more about them. He had often risked his life for a 
really good sporting race, and I myself believe that 
he did not grudge giving it up during the last lap in 
the Argentina River when the dawn was breaking. 
He was trying to help a friend to do the right sort of 
thing, and when all is said and done none of us can 
do much better than that. 

Well, good luck and long life to the bride and 
bridegroom ! They love each other in a manner quite 
refreshingly whole hearted and delightful. Good 
luck, too, to Kitty Sherard: like the thoroughbreds 
who stand the plough better and “ stay ” longer, 
and show their distress less than those of commoner 
breed, she will continue, as sportsmen say, to play a 
good game to the end; but I am sometimes afraid it 
will not be an easy game. Good luck to Mrs. Avory 
with her pathetic brown eyes, doing her daily gentle 
work amongst the poor; and good luck, too, to the 
genial Vicar and his noble wife, whose silence is a 
living force because it is full of tenderness and 
knowledge, and whose soul has always been free 


370 


PETER AND JANE 


with a fine freedom in the midst of a narrow life 
Good luck to all our friends in this book, and to you 
dear reader, who have followed them so far. 

And so, Good-bye. 


THE END 


X5 8 








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